THROUGH 

BIBLE LANDS: 

NOTES OF TRAVEL 

IN 

EGYPT, THE DESERT, AND PALESTINE, 

/ 

BY PHILIP SCHAFF, D. D., LL. D., 

PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LEARNING IN THE UNION THEOL. SEMINARY, NEW YORK. 




AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 




COPYRIGHT, 1878, 
BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 



SACRED 

TO THE MEMORY 

OF 

MY DAUGHTER META, 

WHOSE LAMENTED DEATH WAS THE OCCASION OF THIS BOOK. 



PREFACE. 



These sketches of Bible Lands for Bible readers have grown out 
of a series of familiar letters which I wrote from the banks of the 
Nile, and from the tent in the Wilderness and in Palestine; remem- 
bering that those who enjoy the privilege of travelling abroad ought 
•to give to their friends at home the benefit of their experience. In 
the process of reconstruction the letters have grown into chapters 
and lost somewhat the freshness of first impressions, but gained, I 
trust, in sohdity and instructiveness. Bible Lands, hke the Bible 
itself, are of such universal and such perennial interest that they 
will continually demand new books and new comments. 

The object of the book is to give the general reader a clear idea 
of the actual condition and prospects of the East by a simple nar- 
rative of what I saw and heard and felt on the spot. I am not an 
explorer, like my honored predecessor and friend. Dr. Robinson, 
whose Biblical Researches^ though written forty years ago, are still 
the highest authority in Biblical geography ; neither am I gifted 
with that genius for word-painting which imparts to Dean Stanley's 
Sinai and Palestine the charm of a novel. But without entering 
into learned discussions, I have given the results of the latest in- 
vestigations as far as 1 was able to verify them by personal obser- 
vation. I have also paid much attention to the missionary schools 
and churches which represent the Orient of the future. 

A domestic affliction was the sad occasion for this my first jour- 
ney to the East. I went with no intention to write a book, but to 
gain relief, and fresh inspiration for Bible studies. I left New 
York with my wife and only surviving daughter in December, 1876, 

1* 



6 



PREFACE. 



passed rapidly through England, France, and Italy, and spent the 
winter and spring in Egypt, the Sinaitic Wilderness, Palestine and 
Syria. I then visited, during the Russian and Turkish war, Cyprus, 
Smyrna, Constantinople, and Athens, and returned by way of 
Trieste, Venice, Switzerland, Germany, England, and Scotland, 
reaching New York again in August, 1877. While in Africa and 
Asia I enjoyed almost perpetual sunshine. I was reported impris- 
oned and even massacred in the Great Desert, but not a hair of 
my head has been hurt. I met kind Christian friends and brethren 
everywhere. The shadows of death followed me, but the God of 
Israel went before me in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of 
fire by night. 

I shall ever look back to this eastern journey with pleasure and 
gratitude, and shall feel abundantly repaid if this unpretending 
record of my experience will help the reader to a better under, 
standing of the Book of books, and a deeper interest in the revival 
of true Christianity in the land of its birth. 

PHILIP SCHAFF. 

New York, October, 1878. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAP. I. Bible Lands -- page ii 



PART FIRST: 
EGYPT, 

CHAP. II. From New York to Alexandria 19 

CHAP. III. Alexandria 25 

CHAP. IV. Cairo -- 31 

CHAP. V. The Pyramids - 39 

CHAP. VI. Heliopolis 56 

CHAP. VII. Up the Nile - 62 

CHAP. VIIL Luxor and Thebes 73 

CHAP. IX. From Luxor to Philse - 78 

CHAP. X. Egyptology and the Bible — 82 

CHAP. XI. Ancient and Modern Egypt Compared 104 

CHAP. XII. The Mohammedan Religion - no 

CHAP. XIII. Christianity in Egypt 122 



8 CONTENTS, 



PART SECOND. 

THE SINAITIC PENINSULA, 

CHAP. XIV. Thirty Days pn the Camel I33 

CHAP. XV. The Great Wilderness I45 

CHAP. XVI. 'Ayun Musa and the Exodus - 150 

CHAP. XVIL From 'Ayun Musa to Mount Sinai - 163 

CHAP. XVHL Mount Sinai - 171 

CHAP. XIX. The Convent of St. Catharine -- 184 

CHAP. XX. From Mount Sinai to Gaza - 196 



PART THIRD. 

THE HOL Y LAND, 

CHAP. XXI. Hebron - 207 

CHAP. XXII. Bethlehem 220 

CHAP. XXIII. Jerusalem 232 

CHAP. XXIV. Religion in Jerusalem 240 

CHAP. XXV. Mount Moriah, and the Dome of the Rock 253 

CHAP. XXVI. Calvary, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 259 

CHAP. XXVII. Mount Olivet, and Bethany 271 

CHAP. XXVIII. The Convent of Mar Saba - - --- 278 

CHAP. XXIX. The Dead Sea ---- 283 



CONTENTS. 9 

CHAP. XXX. The Jordan - - ^ 296 

CHAP. XXXI. Samaria - 308 

CHAP. XXXII. Nazareth 320 

CHAP. XXXIII. Tabor and Hermon 330 

CHAP. XXXIV. The Lake of Galilee 337 

CHAP. XXXV. Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin 343 

CHAP. XXXVI. Ccesar^a Philippi 355 

CHAP. XXXVII. Damascus 361 

CHAP. XXXVIII. Beirut 373 

CHAP. XXXIX. Farewell to the Holy Land 383 

CHAP. XL. The Regeneration of the Orient 391 

Meaning of Arabic Words 407 

Alphabetical Index - - — 409 



MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Bethlehem-----"-- — ------- ---------'-------Frontispiece 

Park in Cairo = page 31 

Ascent OF THE Pyramid — 

The Sphinx and a Pyramid - - » - - _ _ _ 

Luxor: from the Nile - 

Obelisk of On - - _ 

Colossi of Memnon : Thebes- - 81 

Temple of Aboo Simbel - - gr 

Map of Egypt and the Sinaitic Peninsula - 145 

Camel-riding 139 

Mount Serbal - -181 

Map of Palestine in the Time of Christ -207 

Hebron - — - 209 

Mount Olivet and Gethsemane- -209 

Rachel's Tomb - - 218 

Jerusalem: from the Mount of Olives 232 

Pool of Hezekiah 237 

Jaffa - - 23S 

Via Dolorosa - 241 

Mosque of Omar 255 

Bethany • - 273 

Plain Er-Rahah, and Convent of St. Catharine 281 

Convent of Mar-Saba--- - - 281 

Jericho and the Dead Sea 298 

Ruined Fountain at Jericho -305 

Shechem ---314 

Nazareth - - - • 314 

Mount Tabor - 330 

Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee - - -339 

Damascus - - 361 

Tyre 375 



THROUGH 

Bible Lands. 



CHAPTER I. 

Introductory— Egypt — The Desert— Palestine— Mode 
of Travel in the East— Novelty of Scenes— Practi- 
cal Use. 

Dear reader, I propose to take you on a flying visit 
to Bible lands, and to give you in a few leisure hours 
an outline of what I saw in five months. February is 
the best season for Egypt, March for the wilderness, 
April and May for Palestine and Syria, June for Greece 
and Italy. In Egypt we sail on the Nile and ride on the 
donkey, in the Desert we use the camel, in Palestine and 
Syria the horse. But you may do all this on the swift 
wings of your imagination, while sitting in your easy- 
chair at home. 

The progress of actual travel in the Orient is slow, 
but not too slow for enjoyment and instruction. A whole 
day is required for a distance which can be traversed by 
railway in an hour. The mode of travelling in the 
Desert, the Holy Land, and in parts of Egypt, is the 
same as in the days of the patriarchs, more than three 



12 



BIBLE LANDS. 



thousand years ago, and that is one of its peculiar 
charms, which will be broken when modern civilization 
shall have penetrated the East. We engage a dragoman, 
who provides the outfit and acts as interpreter between 
the traveller and the Arab servants. We take with us 
a caravan of Bedawin, with tents, provision, and cook- 
ing apparatus. There are no turnpikes, no carriages, no 
hotels, except a few in the large cities, kept by Euro- 
peans. The Arab inns or khans are forbidding and 
destitute of all comforts required by civilized people. I 
spent a night in the convent of Mar Saba, and another 
in an inn at Jericho, kept by a Greek, but lost my sleep 
by those unmentionable little creatures with which 
Beelzebub tries the patience of man. 

In the Orient all is primitive and novel to Europeans 
and Americans. Their first impression is wonderment 
at the strange sights of men and things which appear to 
them like a masquerade or fancy-fair gotten up for their 
special amusement. The Orientals, judged by Western 
habits, do everything the wrong way : they eat with the 
fingers ; they sit, not on chairs, but cross-legged on the 
floor or the earth ; they keep their women veiled and 
out of public sight; they write on their knees and from 
right to left ; they take off their shoes in the mosque 
and keep on their fez or turban. Any scrap of cotton, 
or linen, or silk of any color, a blanket, a shawl, a sash, 
a shirt, loosely thrown over the body, serves them as a 
dress ; but they always look picturesque, and have a 
native courtesy and dignity which contrast favorably 
with their otherwise degraded and beggarly condition. 



BENEFITS OF TRA VEL. 



t3 



Modern civilization is monotonous, it has a tendency to 
level distinctions and to impress a uniform type upon 
men of all classes of society; it sets up the dumb idol of 
fashion which rules supreme over crowned monarchs 
and republican presidents. In the East there is much 
more independence and variety; there the Arab, the 
Turk, the Armenian, the Maronite, the Copt, the Jew, 
the Nubian, the Bedawin, the dervish, the priest, the 
official, the merchant, the mechanic, the barber, the 
dragoman, the donkey-boy, the runner, the singer, the 
serpent-charmer, the fruit-seller, the water-carrier, the 
slave, the beggar — all appear in their distinct individ- 
uality and costume; each consults his own taste or 
whim, and is never disturbed by the ever-changing fash- 
ions of Paris. 

What is the use of travelling in the East ? Does it 
repay for all the time, the money, the fatigue, the vexa- 
tion and annoyance inseparable from it ? The benefit 
of travel depends upon the disposition and preparation 
of the traveller. Such preparation is especially neces- 
sary in the East. The more knowledge we carry with us, 
the more we shall bring back. Multitudes of travellers 
return as ignorant and empty as they start; while others, 
from the study of books, may become as familiar with 
foreign nations and countries as with their own. For- 
tunately it is not necessary for the majority of readers 
to visit Bible lands in order to understand the Bible, any 
more than it is to know Greek and Hebrew. Some of 
the best Biblical scholars and commentators — Augus- 
tine, Luther, Calvin, Grotius, Matthew Henry, Bengel, 

2 



14 BIBLE LANDS. 

Olshausen, Hengstenberg, Tholuck, Meyer, Ewald — 
never visited the Holy Land. Dean Howson prepared 
the geographical sections which gave the work on the 
Life and Epistles of St. Paul " such a wide popularity, 
merely from books. Even the founder of the science 
of comparative geography, Carl Ritter, never saw Pal- 
estine and the Sinaitic Peninsula which he so fully and 
so accurately described. 

But after all it is an inestimable advantage to see 
with one's own eyes the birthplaces of the authors of the 
Sacred Writings, and their surroundings, and to be able 
to speak from personal observation and experience. Man- 
ners and customs are so stationary in the East, that you 
are transferred as by magic to the age of the apostles, 
the prophets, and the patriarchs. A flood of light is 
thrown on the meaning of innumerable passages which 
appear strange at a distance, but quite natural on the 
spot. A thoughtful traveller fills his memory with a 
gallery of photographic pictures more valuable than any 
number of books. Whenever he reads afterwards of the 
visits of Abraham, Joseph and Jacob to Egypt, the mir- 
acles of Moses, the wanderings of the Israelites, of Hebron, 
Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Dead Sea, the river Jordan, 
the Lake of Gennesaret, Mount Hermon, the cedars of 
Lebanon, Jerusalem, Bethany, Gethsemane, and Mount 
Olivet, the places and scenes rise up before his mental eye 
with a vividness which they never had before. The 
ruinous condition of those countries may diminish the 
poetry, but the impression of the reality is deepened. 
Palestine has not been inaptly termed ''the fifth Gospel." 



BENEFITS OF TRA VEL, 



15 



It is the framework in which the canonical Gospels are 
set. I would advise every theological student who can 
afford it, to complete his Biblical educati'on by a visit to 
the Holy Land. It will be of more practical use to him 
in his pulpit labors than the lectures of the professors 
in Oxford or Cambridge, in Berlin or Leipzig, valuable 
as these may be. The best thing, of course, is to com- 
bine the most thorough theoretical study and personal 
experience on the spot. A sound and correct histor- 
ical understanding of the Bible has gained much from 
the researches of scholarly travellers, and will gain 
still more in time to come. For the Holy Scriptures 
have a human body as well as a divine soul ; they strike 
their roots deep in the soil from which they sprang, while 
their ideas soar to heaven ; they are thoroughly oriental, 
and yet wonderfully adapted for all mankind in all ages 
of the world. 



FIRST PART. 

Egypt. 



2* 



FIRST P^^HT. 

EGYPT. 



CHAPTER II. 

FROM NEW YORK TO ALEXANDRIA. 

Egypt— From New York to Brindisi— Corfu— Crete- 
Alexandria. 

Let us begin with Egypt, the country of the Nile, 
the land of pyramids and sphinxes, of temples and tombs, 
of hieroglyphics and mummies, of sacred bulls and croco- 
diles, of despotic power and slavish degradation. There 
the patriarchal •family found a hospitable home and grew 
into a nation; there Joseph rose from slavery into which 
he was sold by his jealous brothers, to the highest posi- 
tion in the kingdom, and preserved the purity of his 
faith and character amid surrounding idolatry and cor- 
ruption ; there Moses was born and educated in all the 
wisdom of the Egyptians ; there he wrought his miracles 
and became the leader of his people from bondage to 
freedom, himself a pyramid among the great men of 
antiquity — held in veneration to this day by the followers 
of three religions, the Christian, the Jewish, and the 
Mohammedan, The land of Egypt is imbedded in the 



20 BIBLE LANDS. 



Decalogue as the house of bondage out of which the 
Lord God brought his people. Egypt gave shelter to 
the infant Jesus and his parents against the wrath of 
Herod, and the venerable tree is still shown near Heli- 
opolis under which Mary and Joseph are said to have 
rested from the fatigue of their journey. In a double 
sense it is true what was spoken by the Lord through 
the prophet, " Out of Egypt have I called my son." 

The chief attraction to the traveller are the ruins of 
the oldest civilization which are scattered over the valley 
of the Nile and make it the most wonderful valley in the 
world. Egypt is a green garden between two deserts, 
watered by the noblest river, and consecrated by the 
imperishable memorials of a history of five thousand 
years. I shall enlarge upon what concerns Egypt,'* 
says Herodotus, the father of history, ''because it con- 
tains more wonders than any other country, and because 
there is no other country where we may see so many 
works which are admirable and beyond all expression." 

After a rough winter passage over the stormy Atlantic 
and the equally disagreeable English channel, we take 
the railroad at Calais and rapidly pass through Paris, 
Geneva, the tunnel of Mount Cenis, Turin, Bologna, 
Florence, Rome and Naples, and then, turning eastward, 
we reach Brindisi on the southeastern shore of Italy, the 
starting point for our voyage to the land of the Pha- 
raohs. I congratulate you that in this vicarious mode of 
travelling you are spared the nasty experience of sea- 
sickness and the monotonous prison life on board a 
crowded ship with its seventy perfumes, separate, dis- 



NEW YORK TO ALEXANDRIA, 



tinct, and well defined," which I never smelled at Cologne, 
but on many an ocean steamer. A Frenchman on pay- 
ing his tribute to Neptune, well remarked, Y or plaisir I 
cross the ocean ne-v-er f Sea-sickness is nowhere better 
described than in the good old Bible when speaking of 
those who reel to and fro," who " stagger like a drunken 
man, abhor all manner of meat, are at their wit's end and 
draw near unto .the gates of death." (Psa. 107.) But 
we soon get over it when we land, and feel all the better 
for the process of purification. The passage across the 
European continent is a succession of pleasures even to 
an old traveller, and is made doubly agreeable by meet- 
ing good friends everywhere. 

We leave Brindisi in an Austrian steamer on Friday 
night, January 26, for Corfu, in good company — mostly 
English, Scotch, and American. Mr. Thomas Cook, 
from London, the founder and head of the now famous 
firm, "Thomas Cook & Son," is with us, hoping to get 
rid of a troublesome cough in the milder climate of 
Egypt. He is a plain, self-educated, enterprising and 
energetic Englishman, now about seventy years of age. 
He is a member of the Baptist church, and takes great 
interest in the Baptist missions in Rome and Naples. 
He has earned the gratitude of many travellers who find 
it a great convenience to use his tickets, especially in 
the East. 

The weather is threatening and reminds us of the 
stormy passage of Caesar from this port, and his stirring 
v^ords to the timid captain : Be of good cheer ! Thou 
carriest Caesar and his fortunes !" 



22 BIBLE LANDS. 

We arrive on Saturday afternoon in Corfu, (Korkyra,) 
and breathe the air of Greece, that wonderful little coun- 
try, which in the intellectual and artistic progress of the 
world occupies as prominent a position as little Palestine 
does in the history of religion. Corfu is a beautiful 
island, with a fine climate and southern vegetation. In 
1815 it came into the possession of the English, but in 
1864 it was ceded to the kingdom of Greece, together 
with the other Ionian Islands, Cephalonia and Zante. 
This generous act is mainly due to the exertions of the 
Hon. W. E. Gladstone, whose liberal statesmanship and 
Homeric scholarship made him a friend of New Hellas. 
The inhabitants, however, with all their Greek patriotism, 
regret the loss of English sovereigns and commercial 
prosperity since the annexation. Passing through the 
street, we are pleasantly entertained by the Greek signs 
on the houses and shops, and the picturesque costumes 
of the Greeks, Albanians, and Montenegrins. We find 
comfortable lodgings in the St. George's Hotel, on the 
Promenade, opposite the royal castle, look in the Lon- 
don "Times" for the latest news, and enjoy the magnifi- 
cent view over the sea, the islands, and the mountains of 
Albania. 

On Sunday we attend mass in the Greek church of 
St. Spiridion, the patron-saint of the Ionian islands, once 
Bishop of Cyprus, and a member of the council of Nicaea, 
who even after his consecration remained a rustic shepherd. 
From fear that he might disgrace the first oecumenical 
assembly of Christendom by his ignorance, his brother 
bishops cut off the heads of his two donkeys ; but Spiri- 



NEW YORK TO ALEXANDRIA. 23 



dion, the legend states, performed the amazing feat of 
raising the donkeys to life, reached Nicaea in time and 
voted on the orthodox side and for the condemnation of 
Arius. We see the worshippers crowd around his silver 
coffin. To kiss this coffin and the pictures of the Sav- 
iour and the Virgin seems to be the chief act of devotion 
in Corfu. After mass the priest distributes pieces of 
bread to the people who kiss his hand. This half-com- 
m^union is a commemoration of the Agape or Love-feast 
of the primitive church. 

From the early Greek service we proceed at eleven 
o'clock to the English Episcopal chapel, and listen to an 
indifferent sermonette on natural religion, in which the 
name of Christ is barely mentioned ; while the Greek 
mass made me at least think of the cross and the atone- 
ment. I do not know to which party the officiating 
clergyman belongs ; he may be high and dry, or low 
and slow ; he may be attitudinarian or platitudinarian ; 
but he is certainly neither broad nor deep. It would 
of course be great injustice to take his dull essay for 
a fair specimen of the sermons of Anglican chaplains 
on the continent. I greatly honor the Church of 
England for her active interest in the spiritual benefit 
of travellers, and I often enjoy her services. If the 
sermon is poor, the prayers of the Liturgy are always 
good and edifying, and I never get tired of the Creed, 
the Te Deum, and the Gloria in Excelsis. 

On Monday morning we sail in the Hungaria,'* an 
Austrian Lloyd steamer, which came from Trieste, for 
Egypt. We pass the Ionian Islands, Ithaca (not for- 



24 



BIBLE LANDS. 



getting faithful Penelope and Ulysses' return), and 
Crete, which brings vividly to mind the voyage and ship- 
wreck of St. Paul. The weather is only tolerable, and 
some of us fare no better than on the Atlantic. As far 
as the discomfort of this prison life at sea will permit, w^e 
read Paul's Epistle to Titus, the last chapters of Acts, 
sections from Stanley's " Sinai and Palestine," Murray's 
" Egypt," Wallace's " Desert and the Holy Land," and 
Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad." 

On Thursday, the ist of February, we come in sight 
of Alexandria, and the vision of the Orient flashes over 
our bewildered eyes. 



ALEXANDRIA. 



25 



CHAPTER III. 

ALEXANDRIA. 

The Gate of Egypt — A Babel of Nationalities and 
Tongues— The Donkey Boys— Old Alexandria— 
The Column of Pompey, and the Needles of Cleo- 
patra—Modern Alexandria — Through the Delta 
and to Cairo. 

Alexandria is the gate of Egypt. As soon as we 
arrive in the harbor we are surrounded by a mob of 
swarthy and tumultuous Arabs, with a fleet of boats, most 
anxious to seize the passengers and their baggage. 
Cook's agent and boatmen, distinguished by red shirts 
and Cook's flag, take charge of us, and bring us in a 
short time through the custom-house to the Hotel de 
I'Europe on the Place of Mohammed Ali. 

The sight of Alexandria is a fit introduction to 
Oriental lands. The Babel of nationalities and tongues, 
the shouting and fighting of turbaned, bare-legged and 
bare-footed boatmen and donkey-boys, the picturesque 
dresses of all shapes and colors, the poverty and wretch- 
edness, the everlasting cry for backsheesh," which here 
greets us for the first time — all is novel and exciting. 
The harbor and street life in Naples present a somewhat 
similar scene. * 

The Arab donkey-boys are a characteristic institu- 
tion of Egypt, and we may as well make their acquain- 
tance at once. They are a jolly, good-natured, quick- 

Bible Lands, 



26 



BIBLE LANDS, 



witted and importunate set of vagabonds. They discern 
the nationality of the traveller in a minute, and pick up 
the broken fragments of half a dozen tongues, with a 
decided preference for the English as the most profitable. 
They recommend their long-eared animals to a German 
as donkey Bismarck,'' to a Frenchman as Napoleon," 
or " Thiers," to an Englishman as " Gladstone," or " Tich- 
borne," to an American as " Grant," Minnehaha," or 
"Yankee Doodle." "My donkey good donkey;" "My 
donkey speak English." Nine-tenths of the travellers in 
the East are English and Americans, and this accounts 
for the rapid spread of the English language even among 
the donkey-boys and the Bedawin at the Pyramids. It 
is fast gaining on the Italian and French, which formerly 
were the only medium of intercourse, besides the native 
Arabic, which few foreigners acquire. The language of 
Shakespeare and Milton is destined to be the cosmopolitan 
tongue. It carries with it Christian civilization and 
liberty and the richest literature in the world. 

The modern city of Alexandria is of considerable 
commercial importance, and numbers more than 200,000 
inhabitants, including 50,000 Europeans. But the Suez 
Canal and Port Said have injured its trade. 

The city was founded by Alexander the Great, who 
was buried there. Napoleon said that Alexander show- 
ed more genius in the selection of this spot than in his 
victories, and that this city which could harbor all the 
navies was destined to be the metropolis of the world. 
It became the capital of Egypt, the residence of the 
Ptolemies, It contained in the days of its glory over 



ALEXANDRIA. 



27 



half a million of inhabitants. It was the centre of com- 
merce between the East and the West, and the chief seat 
of heathen, Jewish, and Christian literature, with immense 
libraries, one of which numbered 400,000 rolls. There 
the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into the Greek by 
seventy interpreters, (hence the name, the Septuagint,") 
two centuries before the Christian era. There arose 
the Alexandrian Greek dialect, called the Hellenistic, 
which, with its Hebrew coloring, became the organ of 
early Christianity and still lives on the pages of the 
New Testament. There Philo blended the Mosaic reli- 
gion with the Platonic philosophy, and dreamed of the 
Logos who became flesh for our salvation. There St. 
Mark founded a Christian church, which in the course of 
time became one of the patriarchal sees, outranking 
Jerusalem and Antioch, though outranked afterward by 
Constantinople and Rome. There flourished the first 
theological seminary, under the name of the Catechetical 
School, in which Clement and Origen expounded the 
Scriptures and taught the Christian religion as the last 
and best system of philosophy, as the true gnosis, in 
opposition to the falsely so-called gnosis of the Gnostics 
and New Platonists, who had their headquarters in tne 
same city. There arose, in the fourth century, the Arian 
heresy; but there also its chief opponent, Athanasius, 
the "father of orthodoxy," who alone against the world, 
{Athanasitts versus mimdtcm) in his episcopal seat and in 
exile, in the city and in the desert, defended the eternal 
deity of our Lord as the corner-stone of the Christian 
faith and hope. 



28 



BIBLE LANDS. 



The founding of the rival city of Constantinople, the 
violent theological controversies and schisms, the con- 
quest of Omar, the discovery of the sea-passage to India, 
the misrule of the Turks, are am.ong the chief causes of 
the gradual decline of Alexandria from a splendid city 
of half a million to a miserable village of five thousand, 
surrounded by swamp and desert. The new era of 
Alexandria dates from the wise and energetic though 
despotic Mohammed Ali, and the construction of the 
canal, in 1819, which connected it once more with the 
Nile and the rest of Egypt, by the forced labor of 250,000 
men and at a cost of seven and a half millions of francs. 

Of old Alexandria, heathen and Christian, very little 
remains. It disappeared like the famous library, which 
the semi-barbarous Kalif Omar burnt. His plea for this 
act of vandalism was the absolute sufficiency of the 
Koran, which made every other book either superfluous 
or injurious. The only monuments of old times are the 
Catacombs, the miscalled column of Pompey, and the 
Needles of Cleopatra. The column of Pompey is named, 
not from the famous Pompey who, after his defeat at 
Pharsalus, was murdered on the coast of Egypt; but 
from a Roman prefect, who erected it to the honor of 
the Emperor Diocletian. It stands on an elevation and 
is surrounded by rubbish and filth. Close by is a Mo- 
hammedan cemetery with innumerable oven-like white 
tombs, and a little farther off the Catacombs. 

The Needles of Cleopatra on the seashore are two obe- 
lisks of red granite dating from the time of the Pharaohs. 
They have nothing to do with that licentious queen who 



ALEXANDRIA, 



29 



conquered her Roman conquerors and ended with suicide. 
They were removed from HeliopoHs under Tiberius. 
One was long ago presented by Mohammed Ali to the 
English government, but it was not thought worth the 
cost of transportation, and lay in the sand and mud 
until in the summer of 1877, when it was carried to Eng- 
land to adorn the new embankment of the Thames. The 
other still stands erect. The Needles of Cleopatra, how- 
ever, are far inferior to the Obelisk of Luxor, which 
since 1834 adorns the Place de la Concorde in Paris. 

Alexandria can easily be seen in a day. The Frank 
quarter has some fine buildings and is fast improving. 
The native quarters are full of filth and misery. Oph- 
thalmia prevails to a fearful extent all over Egypt, espe- 
cially among children, whose eyes are besieged with flies, 
and the parents make no attempt to drive them away. I 
had the first illustration of the Scriptures in the water- 
carriers — men with water-skins on their shoulders and 
women carrying huge water-jars gracefully on their 
heads. The most interesting part is the picturesque 
Oriental life in the streets, and the people sitting, work- 
ing, eating, smoking, and sleeping on the ground. But 
this may be studied to better advantage in Cairo. 

The journey from Alexandria to Cairo takes about 

five hours by railway and is full of surprises. It is the 

first railway that was built in the East (1855), ^i^d must 

have struck the Arabs with amazement. The tickets are 

marked with Arabic letters, which an Irishman compared 

to a hen-scratch. The road passes through the rich 

plains of the Delta, the old land of Goshen, and on the 

3# 



30 



BIBLE LANDS, 



right bank of the Nile. The country is as flat and as 
fertile as a prairie of Illinois, and one need not wonder 
that the children of Israel in the barren desert were 
sighing for the flesh-pots, the onions and the garlic of 
Egypt. Strange sights present themselves to the eye as 
we advance — green fields of cotton, beans, wheat, and 
barley ; the tamarisk, the stately palm-tree ; flocks of 
wild ducks, white ibises, pelicans, and storks ; trains of 
camels, loaded with sacks of grain and chicken-coops ; 
officers prancing along on horses or donkeys ; fellaheen 
ploughing with buffaloes or pumping water from the Nile 
and the canals ; mud villages, mosques, and minarets ; 
crowds of half-naked men, women, and children at every 
station ; and in the far distance the yellow hills of the 
desert and the lofty pyramids, at the sight of which a 
thrill goes through the soul. In the afternoon we reach 
the station at Cairo ; and, after escaping the confusion of 
men, donkeys, camels, and cabs, we are comfortably 
lodged in Shepheard's Hotel, one of the best in the East, 
kept by a German, in the new part of the city. 

The climate is delightful. We are suddenly trans- 
planted from winter to spring, from clouds and rain to 
perpetual sunshine. During our whole sojourn in Egypt 
we saw rain but once, and that hardly sufficient for the 
sprinkling of a lotus. Egypt is truly the land of the sun. 



CAIRO. 



31 



CHAPTER IV. 

CAIRO, 

The Capital of Egypt— The Cosmopolis of the East— 
The Street Life— The Bazaars— The Citadel— The 
Mosques— The Old University El-Azhar— The New 
University of the Khedive— The Library— The Mu- 
seum of Boulak— Old Cairo— Roda— The Palaces. 

Cairo (Masr el-Kahira, the Victorious), the capital of 
Egypt and of the Arab world, is also a capital of Moham- 
medanism and the East, second in importance only to 
Constantinople. It is the counterpart of Paris, London, 
and New York, the cosmopolitan cities of Christendom 
and the West. It has a thoroughly Oriental character, 
though not so exclusively as Damascus, but, like Con- 
stantinople, with a considerable infusion of European life 
and civilization which are fast making inroads upon the 
conservative East. The great mass of the 400,000 in- 
habitants are Egyptian Arabs, and followers of Islam. 
The rest are Copts (or Egyptian Christians) ; Turks 
(who are, of course, all Moslems) ; Bedawin (or Arabs of 
the desert) ; Jews, Italians, Greeks, French, Germans, 
English, and a few Americans. The last class occupy 
? high positions in the army, or spend the winter there for 
health and pleasure. 

The greatest charm of Cairo is the street-life. It is 
as amusing, exciting and bewildering as the "Arabian 



32 BIBLE LANDS. 

Nights" entertainments, and makes an indelible impres- 
sion upon the traveller. It is a moving panorama of all 
nationalities, creeds, languages, and costumes, with a 
strong preponderance of the Oriental and semi-barbarous 
element. It is a perpetual carnival, which defies descrip- 
tion. The boulevards of Paris, London Bridge, and New 
York Broadway, are tame compared with it. You may- 
enjoy this unique spectacle quietly sitting on the veran- 
dah of Shepheard's Hotel ; but still better in the old 
town, especially the Muskee. The old houses are high 
and narrow, with upper stories projecting. The streets 
are covered with rafters and matting, to keep out the 
glare of the sun, and are lined with open shops of every 
variety. They are alive with gaudily-dressed and half- 
dressed men and veiled women, water-carriers, pedlers 
of all kinds of wares, braying donkeys, growling camels, 
barking dogs, horses and carriages — all jostling against 
each other in endless confusion. In Muskee the crowd 
is so dense that it seems impossible to get through, and 
the noise so loud that you cannot hear your own voice. 
A German called it a veritable HollenscandaL Every 
carriage and aristocratic donkey is preceded by one or 
more fleet runners (sais), in short trowsers, bare legs, 
and with a long staff to clear the way. The men wear 
the red fez or turbans of all colors. The green color 
marks a descendant of the Prophet or a pilgrim to Mecca. 
Mohammed's banner was green, and hence, to unfold 
the green banner of the Prophet means to declare a 
religious war against the infidels. The women are im- 
prisoned in long veils of silk or muslin, white or black or 



CAIRO. 



33 



blue, according to rank ; the veil is divided about the 
forehead, and fastened to a pin or cylinder of brass or 
silver over the nose so as to leave the dark, restless, and 
frightened eyes free to satisfy the curiosity. Many of the 
lower women carry naked babies on their shoulders or in 
baskets, and the eyes of the poor children are in undis- 
turbed possession of swarms of flies. Not many years ago 
it would have been dangerous for a female to appear 
unveiled on the street ; now you see plenty of Europeans 
in their usual dress. The old fanaticism of Islam has 
been hopelessly undermined under the liberal regime of 
the present Khedive. 

I will not attempt to describe the bazaars, in which 
the ladies are specially interested. There are special 
bazaars for gold and silver ornaments, for silks, for car- 
pets, for slippers, for pipes and tobacco, for antiquities 
mostly of modern manufacture, for fez caps, for hardware 
and all sorts of ware. Oriental and Occidental, genuine 
and spurious. They are mostly in narrow lanes, half- 
lighted and aglow with gorgeous colors. The merchant 
sits cross-legged, smoking his long pipe, in the midst of 
his goods, in all his Oriental dignity. I well remember 
a patriarchal-looking Jew who calls himself " Far-away- 
Moses," who treated us to a cup of Persian tea and per- 
suaded us to buy silks, covers and slippers for about half 
the ''fixed'' prices he at first asked. I met him after- 
wards in Constantinople in the same business. 

My first excursion was to the Citadel. It affords a 
commanding view of the city, the Valley of the Nile, the 
distant Pyramids, the sands and hills of the desert beyond. 



34 



BIBLE LANDS. 



It is one of the finest pictures in the world and can never 
be forgotten. On this spot Mohammed Ali, by a treach- 
erous massacre, destroyed the power of the Mamelukes 
(1811), whose chiefs he had invited to a military parade. 
One only escaped death by a bold leap on horseback 
over the wall 

Within the limits of the Citadel is the beautiful ala- 
baster Mosque of Mohammed Ali, with the tomb of this 
great but unscrupulous tyrant, who died in insanity 
(1849). It was completed in 1857. It is certainly one 
of the noblest structures of that kind, and, being new, it 
is exceptionally clean and elegant. The Mosque of Sultan 
Hassan, at the foot of the Citadel, completed in 1359, is 
called ''the splendid but it is neglected and in a state of 
decay, like many other temples of Islam. Opposite to it 
is the unfinished mosque of the mother of the Khedive. 

The Moslem architecture grew out of the round form 
of the tent, the habitation of the Bedawin, and combines 
with it the cupola of the Byzantine churches. The 
mosques are covered with carpets or rugs, for kneeling 
and prostration, and a pulpit or reading-desk ; but they 
have no seats, no benches, no altar, no pictures, and be- 
tray the iconoclastic character of Mohammedan worship. 

One of the most instructive sights to me was the old 
Moslem University, founded in 975, in the Mosque El- 
Azhar, It is the largest in the world and numbers over 
10,000 pupils and 320 professors, from all Mohammedan 
nations. Many, however, attend it to escape conscription 
to the army, which in Egypt and Turkey is feared more 
than death. It is the hot-bed of Mohammedan fanaticism. 



CAIRO, 



35 



The Koran is the only text-book for grammar, logic, law, 
and philosophy, as well as theology. The university has 
the appearance of a huge Sunday-school. The students 
sit cross-legged on the floor, in small groups, reading or 
listening to the instruction of the teacher. There they 
also eat, and sleep on a blanket or straw mat. They 
support themselves, or are supported by the alms of the 
faithful. The professors receive no salary, and are sup- 
ported by private instruction, copying books, and presents 
from rich scholars. There are no benches, no chairs, no 
beds, no comforts of any kind. The simplicity and self- 
denial of this student-life is something marvellous. Our 
theological students could not stand it a week. Attached 
to the Mosque is a chapel for 300 blind scholars. I 
visited the University twice, in company with Dr. Lansing, 
of Cairo, and Dr. Hogg, of Osiout, who familiarly con- 
versed in Arabic ; but some scholars looked rather sus- 
piciously at us. We had first to get permission from the 
headquarters of the police, and to wait nearly an hour 
till the formalities were gone through. The head of 
police, formerly a Circassian slave, sat there in his digni- 
ty and politely treated us to a little cup of dark coffee 
and a cigarette, the usual manifestation of Oriental hos- 
pitality. He wrote his orders to the many servants who 
passed in and out, not on the table or the divan, but on 
his knee. As long as El-Azhar is thronged with students, 
» Islam will be a great power in Africa and Asia. 

In striking contrast to this Old University is the New 
University, founded by the Khedive and superintended 
by Mr. Dor, the minister of public instruction, a Swiss 



36 



BIBLE LANDS, 



by birth. I had a letter of introduction to him from my 
friend Dr. Godet in Neuchatel, and I found him a very 
intelligent and courteous gentleman, but in delicate 
health. He gave me much information about the schools 
in Egypt, and complained of the want of funds. The 
New University represents the modern system of secular 
education, without religion, and affords instruction in all 
modern languages ; while in the Old University the 
Koran and the Arabic are the exclusive object and organ 
of teaching. It numbers, however, only 300 pupils, and 
is looked upon with suspicion by the genuine Moslems. 
Time will show whether the new civilization is able to 
conquer the old fanaticism. 

Near the New University is the library of the Khedive, 
founded in 1870. It numbers already over 25,000 vol- 
umes, mostly Arabic, Turkish, and French works. It is 
especially rich in old copies of the Koran {imtsahif), col- 
lected from the various mosques of Cairo. They are of 
large size, written with the greatest skill and care, well 
bound, and present the finest specimens of Arab calli- 
graphy, equal to the best mediaeval manuscripts of the 
Bible. The student of the Koran and its commentators 
will scarcely find a more favorable opportunity to prose- 
cute his work than here. The obliging librarian. Dr. 
Spitta, is an excellent Arabic scholar, a pupil of Profes- 
sor Fleischer, of Leipsic, and a son of the sweet German 
singer, the author of " Psaltery and Harp." A brother 
of his is a theologian and superintends the Tholuck 
stipend at Halle. 

No one interested in Egyptian history and antiquities 



CAIRO. 



37 



will fail to visit the museum at Botdak, a suburb and 
harbor of Cairo, on the right bank of the Nile. Although 
of recent origin, it has already, by the indefatigable zeal 
of its founder and superintendent, Mariette- Bey, become 
one of the richest collections of Egyptian antiquities, and 
can favorably compare with those of Turin, Berlin, the 
Louvre, and the British Museum. The building is too 
small, and a larger one is in course of preparation, on 
the other side of the Nile. The original locality of all 
the articles is known. A French catalogue, prepared by 
Mariette-Bey, gives a full description. Badeker also, in 
the first part of his u^gypten (1877), dwells on it at length 
(pp. 313—324). Among the most interesting curiosities 
is the wooden statue of a civil officer, of striking indi- 
viduality, which contrasts favorably with the petrified 
stiffness of Egyptian art. Biblical scholars will be inter- 
ested in a statue of Rameses II. (the Pharaoh of Israel's 
oppression), and the head of his son, Menephthah (the 
Pharaoh of the Exodus). 

We can barely mention other remarkable spots in the 
neighborhood which will repay a visit. Old Cairo is the 
Babylon of the Romans, and according to the local 
Coptic tradition the Babylon from which St. Peter dated 
his first Epistle, while most commentators decide in fa- 
vor of Babylon in Asia or possibly of the mystic Baby- 
Ion, ancient Rome. In the crypt of the old Coptic 
church Abu Serge, the Virgin Mary with the Holy child, 
is said to have spent a month. Close by is the island 
Roda with a celebrated Nilometre. Among the many 
palaces, that of Gezire with a fine park and menagerie is 

Bible Land*. 4: 



38 



BIBLE LANDS. 



the most beautiful. It was finished by a German archi- 
tect in 1868, and accommodated the Empress Eugenie, the 
Emperor of Austria, and the Prince of Wales. I saw 
nothing in it which could offend refined taste. The wild 
animals, especially the lions, tigers, and hyenas, show in 
this their native climate much more vitality and vigor 
than in European menageries. The Kiosk, in the middle 
of the garden, is considered the finest of the modern 
Arab buildings in Egypt, and is ornamented in the style 
of the Alhambra. 



THE PYRAMIDS. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE PYRAMIDS, 

The Pyramids and Sphinxes fit Symbols of Egypt- 
Number and Design of the Pyramids— Royal 
Sepulchres — Egyptian Belief in Immortality 
and Resurrection — The Pyramids of Gheezeh — 
The Great Pyramid— Ascent of the Pyramid— A 
Unique Panorama — The King's and the Queen's 
Chamber — The Great Sphinx — The Bedawin 
Guides — Piazzi Smyth's Theory — A Miracle in 
Stone — Allusions in the Bible— General Charac- 
ter of the Pyramids and Egyptian Monuments — 
Despotism and Slavery — The Present Khedive — 
The Future of Egypt. 

A VISIT to the pyramids — ^'the memorials of the 
world's youth" — is an event in a man's life. It is worth 
a visit to Egypt. The pyramids and the sphinxes are 
the fittest symbols, the best welcome, and the best fare- 
well to the land of the Pharaohs, who themselves rose 
like pyramids, in solitary grandeur, far above the desert 
plain of slavery around them. It is a remarkable fact, 
that the grandest architectural achievements of men are 
usually found in level countries — as the banks of the 
Nile, the Euphrates, the Ganges, Lombardy, the Nether- 
lands — where they can display their vastness and maj- 
esty without fear of rivalry from the mightier works of 
God. A pyramid or a cathedral in the Highlands of 



40 



BIBLE LANDS, 



Berne, in Zermatt, or in Chamouni, would be overpeered 
and overshadowed by the Jungfrau, the Matterhorn, or 
Mont Blanc. 

There were once more than seventy pyramids, repre- 
senting as many kings, in the valley of the Nile, on the 
borders of the desert.* Some have disappeared entirely, 
the others are in a more or less ruined condition. The 
word is probably derived from the Egyptian Pi-Rama," 
the mountain. Pyramids are mountains of stone, built 
for the same purpose as the rock-tombs, to hide a royal 
mummy in perfect security. As soon as a king ascended 
the throne, he began to build his monument and his 
sepulchre. He wished to reign even after his death. 
The size of the pyramid corresponded to the length of 
the reign. f Each year added a new pile of limestone ; 
higher and higher rose the structure the longer the mon- 
arch lived, until the top was reached, and the four trian- 
gles of the royal tomb were covered with polished granite. 
Then the body of the dead monarch, carefully embalmed, 
was deposited in the stone sarcophagus previously pre- 

* Brugsch-Bey {Geschichte yEgyptens uiifer den Pharaonen, nach den 
Denkmalern^ Leipzig, 1877, p. 73) says : Mehr als siebenzig der Pyrami- 
den erhoben einst sick an dei7i Rand der Wuste^ jede eine7t K'dnig kiindendy 
der Grab tmd Denkmal sick gleichzeitig schnfJ^ Other writers count forty- 
five, or sixty-five, or as many as one hundred and thirty, including all sorts 
of pyramidal structures, ancient and modern. Lepsius, the leader of the 
Prussian expedition, 1842-44, discovered no less than thirty pyramids 
which had escaped the attention of former travellers, Piazzi Smyth 
(" Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramids," 1874, p. 3) reduces the num- 
ber of pyramids to thirty-eight, and gives a list of them, p. 412, sq. 

t Lepsius and Brugsch think that additions could be made to the 
upright sides of the stages at any time before the triangular spaces were 
filled in. But Wilkinson dissents from this view. See Rawlinson's 
*' Herodotus," Vol. IL, p. 173, note (Appleton's ed.). 



THE PYRAMIDS. 



41 



pared in the interior of the building, and the access was 
closed. The pyramids were thus the massive and impen- 
etrable casings of a royal mummy, without windows, 
without doors and external opening, surrounded by a 
vast necropolis of the priests, relations, and high officers 
of the royal builders. 

To account for this custom we must remember the 
strong belief of the ancient Egyptians in the immortality 
and migration of the soul and its ultimate return to the 
body. For this reason the mummy must be preserved 
with religious care. The scarabaeus — the shining black 
beetle which lays its eggs in small balls of dirt on the 
Nile, rolls them along with its hind feet to the borders 
of the desert and deposits them in holes for burial and 
resurrection — was worshipped as an emblem of fertility 
and immortality ; it was modelled in precious materials 
with spread wings, worn in rings, carried as a charm, 
used as a seal, and buried with the mummy. Scarabaei, 
genuine and spurious, are among the most frequent an- 
tiques offered for sale. According to Herodotus (Book 
II., chap. 124), the Egyptians were the first nation who 
held the opinion that the soul of man is immortal, and 
that when the body dies, it enters into the form of an 
animal which is born at the moment, thence repassing on 
from one animal into another, until it has circled through 
all the creatures which tenant the earth, the water, and 
the air, after which it enters again into a human frame 
and is born anew. The whole period of the transmigra- 
tion is, they say three thousand years. He also relates 
the singular custom that at the social banquets of the 

4* 



42 



BIBLE LANDS. 



rich a wooden skeleton in a coflfin was carried round and 
shown to the guests with the words, Look on this, and 
drink and be merry ; for when thou art dead, such shalt 
thou be/' The constant thought of death, retribution, 
and the long migration of the lonely soul through tracts 
unknown, imparted to them an air of melancholy sad- 
ness which was, however, relieved by the hope of resur- 
rection as symbolized in the myth of their chief divinity, 
Osiris. The famous Book of the Dead,'' or Funeral 
Ritual," of which several copies were found in the tombs, 
is a guide or a sort of Pilgrim's Progress to the other 
world, with hymns, prayers, rubrics, and directions.^ It 
gives a mystical account of the adventures of the soul 
after death, its passage to Hades, and its judgment by 
Osiris. The great god is seated on his throne, his forty- 
two assessors seated in two rows inquire into the forty- 
two sins. Thoth weighs the heart in the balance ; if 
found too light, the soul is doomed to the torments of 
hell, or to migrations in the body of a pig or other ani- 
mal ; if the heart is found sufficiently heavy, the soul 
ascends to the fields of bliss among the gods, while the 
well-preserved mummy waits for its resurrection and re- 
union with the immortal spirit. The monuments fre- 
quently represent pictures of this judgment scene, inclu- 
ding the pig into which the wicked soul is sent. Pytha- 

* Best editions by Lepsius, Das Todtenhich der ^gypter^ Leipzig, 1842 
(from a Turin papyrus), and ^Iteste Texte des altagyptischen Todtenbucks, 
Berlin, 1867; by De Rouge, Rittiel funeraire^ Paris, 1861-5; and by Birch 
in the fifth volume of Bunsen's great work on Egypt^ London, 1867. See 
also Bunsen's Egypt ^ Vol. V., pp. 123, sqq., and Vigouroux La Bible et 
les decotivertes modernes en Egypt et en Assyn'e, Paris, 1877, vol. 2, pp. 
431-435- 



THE PYRAMIDS, 



43 



goras borrowed his notion of the metempsychosis, or 
metensomatosis, from the Egyptians. 

The largest pyramids are in the neighborhood of 
Memphis, on the border of the Lybian desert, at Sakkara, 
Aboosir, Dashoor, and Gheezeh. They were erected by 
the Pharaohs of the Memphitic dynasties. The Pharaohs 
of the Theban dynasties preferred the rock-tombs which 
abound in Upper Egypt, and are like subterranean palaces. 
The three pyramids of Gheezeh'* are best preserved and 
the most interesting of all. They were built by Chufu 
(Sofo), Chafra, and Menkera, all of the fourth dynasty of 
Memphis (b. c. 3091 to 3020). They lie ten miles west 
of Cairo, and can now be easily reached by carriage in 
two hours, but the Bedawin keep the end of the road in 
a wretched condition that they may have a chance to 
earn a few shillings by dragging the carriage through 
the sand, and bearing feeble or timid passengers on their 
shoulders. 

Among these three pyramids of Gheezeh, the Pyra- 
mid of Cheops or the " Great Pyramid," is by far the 
most important, and worth all the rest. It is the pyra- 
mid, as the mysterious sphinx at its base is the Sphinx, 
It is probably the oldest and certainly the largest build- 
ing in the world, though but a pigmy of yesterday as 
compared with God's own pyramids — the Alps. It was 
one of the seven wonders of the Old World, and it is a 
wonder and a puzzle to-day. Well might Napoleon fire 
his soldiers by pointing them to that hoary monarch of 

* The word is differently spelled, Gheezeh, Geezeh, Ghiseh, Gize, 
leezeh, Jizeh, Djiza, Dsjise, Dscliiseh, etc. 



44 



BIBLE LANDS. 



buildings from which "forty centuries looked down upon 
them." It was erected by Chufu (or Cheops, as Hero- 
dotus call him), more than two thousand, if not three 
thousand, years before Christ.* It was old when Rome 
was built, when Homer sang, when David reigned, when 
Moses. led the children of Israel from the land of bond- 
age, yea, when Abraham visited Pharaoh. Its base covers 
thirteen acres, or an area of 61,835 (formerly 65,437) 
square yards, and it rises to a perpendicular height of 
460 (formerly 479) feet, the loftiest human structure 
in the world. It is computed to have contained 6,848,000 
tons of solid masonry. And yet we see it only in its 
mutilated state. The vandalism of the Greeks, Romans, 
and Saracens has robbed it of the polished red granite 
casing, to enrich their palaces and mosques. It was 
built in steps or successive stages by means of machines 
formed of short wooden planks. The upper portion was 
finished first, the lowest last. Herodptus (Book IL, chs. 
124, 125) was informed that 100,000 workmen, changing 
every three months (360,000 according to Diodorus), 
were constantly employed for ten years in making the 

* Chufu reigned, according to Lepsius, Ebers, and others, B. c. 3091 
to 3076. But the Egyptologists differ very widely in their chronology. 
Marietta puts the building of the Great Pyramid back to B. c. 4235, 
Brugsch to B. c. 3733 ; while Piazzi Smyth puts it down to the age of 
Abraham and Melchisedek, B.C. 2170. Chufu was the second Pharaoh 
of the fourth dynasty, and reigned for some time together with his brother 
Nou Chufu, and this accounts for the 50 years assigned to his reign by 
Herodotus (Book II., ch. 127). He was followed by Chafra (the Chephren 
of the Greeks), who built the second pyramid of Gheezeh (b. c. 3067 to 
3043), and by Menkera (the Mykerinos of the Greeks), who built the third 
and smallest (b. c. 3043 to 3020). According to Herodotus, Cheops and 
Chephren were very despotic and unpopular, Mykerinos humane and just. 





ASCENT OF A PYRAMID. 



THE PYRAMIDS. 



45 



causeway for the conveyance of the stones, and twenty 
years more in building the Great Pyramid itself, at a 
cost of 1, 600 talents of silver (about ^1,700,000, or over 
seven millions of German marks). 

We must not forget the dark side of the picture. 
The pyramids, like the Tower of Babel, the Colosseum of 
Rome, and similar monuments of pride and folly, tell in 
silent eloquence a tale of tears and sorrow of a whole 
people which groaned under the yoke of tyrants, and 
cursed their memory. Even centuries after the death of 
the builders, when Herodotus visited the pyramids, the 
Egyptians remembered the sufferings and curses of their 
forefathers, and refused to mention the names of the 
kings who built the two largest pyramids (Chufu and 
Chafra). He was told that their bodies which were to 
be entombed there, were buried in unknown places from 
fear that they might be stolen and torn to pieces. And 
what did the 300,000 or more laborers get for their toil 1 
Radish, onion, garlic, and nameless obscurity. For an in- 
scription on the outside mentioned the quantity of these 
vegetables spent upon the laborers, and the amount of 
money it cost. 

We climb over the rugged blocks to the top of the 
Great Pyramid, which is thirty feet square, and with the 
help of the Arabs we reach it in a quarter of an hour. 
Here we enjoy a panorama without a parallel in the 
world. The green garden of the Nile and the yellow 
desert, teeming life and boundless death bordering on 
each other in startling contrast ! Towards the east we 
see the fertile fields, the stately palms, the majestic 



46 



BIBLE LANDS, 



river with dahabeahs and steamers bound for Nubia, the 
city of Cairo with its citadel, mosques and minarets, and 
beyond it the Mokattam hills ; towards the west an 
ocean of drifting sand and barren rock ; towards the 
south the mysterious Sphinx, the neighboring pyramids 
of Chafra and Menkera, and the more distant pyramids 
of Aboosir, Sakkara, and Dashoor. The impression is 
spiritualized by the historical associations which invol- 
untarily pass before the mind's eye — Abraham, Joseph, 
the patriarchal family, Moses, the Exodus; the Egypt 
of the Pharaohs, of Cambyses and the Persians, of Alex- 
ander the Great and the Ptolemies, of the Romans and 
the Byzantine Emperors, of the Mohammedans and Sara- 
cens, of the Turks, of the Mamelukes, of Napoleon, of 
Mohammed Ali, and of the present Khedive. Never 
did I feel so deeply the spell of antiquity. " All things 
fear time, but time fears the pyramids," 

Having ascended to the top, we shall not shun the 
severer task of examining the interior, where we must 
literally stoop to conquer. With guides and torches we 
crawl through the dark, narrow, and slippery passages, 
first descending, then ascending to the Grand Gallery, 
and into the heart of the structure, the King's Chamber. 
This chamber is thirty-four feet long, seventeen broad, 
and nineteen high, and contains the only furniture in the 
building, an open and empty sarcophagus of polished 
granite, which was intended to be the resting-place of 
Cheops, but probably never contained his mummy. The 
coffin has no trace of an inscription, but its size and po- 
sition have given rise to far-reaching speculations, which 



THE PYRAMIDS. 



47 



we shall notice below. Returning through the Grand 
Gallery, we pass through a horizontal passage into the 
Queen's Chamber, so called, which is empty. Probably 
the Great Pyramid was the work of two kings, as Colonel 
Vyse discovered the names of two Chufu or Shufu (Che- 
ops and his brother) among the quarry marks on the 
blocks ; and that they reigned together, is shown by the 
number of years ascribed to their reigns. This circum- 
stance accounts for two chambers in this pyramid. The 
impression produced in these dark passages is altogether 
different from the one on the top ; we are overwhelmed 
with the mystery of death and eternity. Perspiring and 
covered with dust, we wind our way back, and are glad 
to come out of this suffocating labyrinth of death into the 
pure air and the golden light of the sun. 

We next visit the colossal Sphinx who keeps sleep- 
less watch over the vast necropolis. He is cut out of the 
solid rock, about six hundred steps from the second pyra- 
mid, and raises his mutilated human head and lion paws 
out of the sand of the desert in which he was buried for 
ages. The sphinxes, like all the Egyptian gods, are a 
monstrous union of man and beast. They have always 
the body of a lion, and either the head of a man (never 
of a woman) or of a ram, as those which lead to the tem- 
ple of Karnak. The former are called Andros-Sphinxes, 
the latter Krios-Sphinxes. The Assyrians provided their 
sphinxes with wings, as an emblem of swiftness and the ^ 
power of elevation. The sphinxes are usually sup- 
posed to represent sovereign royalty — intellect combined 
with physical strength ; but according to an inscription 



48 



BIBLE LANDS. 



at Edfii, they originally symbolized the conflict of the 
god Horiis (the son of Osiris and Isis) with the evil spirit 
Typhon, when, in order to avenge the death of Osiris, he 
assumed the shape of a lion with a human head, and slew 
the enemy. Of all sphinxes, the one at Gheezeh is the 
most imposing. He is supposed by modern Egyptolo- 
gists to be as old or even older than the pyramids. And 
yet Herodotus makes no mention of him. The ruins of 
a temple of the Sphinx were discovered a few steps from 
the statue by Mariette in 1853. The Sphinx is merely a 
ruin of what he was when sacrifices were offered on the 
altar between his lion paws of fifty feet in length. And 
yet he makes an overpowering impression as, with dreamy 
eyes, he stares in majestic repose over the valley of the 
Nile and the vast wilderness towards the rising sun. 
The Arabs call him Abti I holl' the Father of Terror or 
Immensity. He reminds one of the impenetrable mys- 
teries of eternity. We shall die, and Islam shall wither 
away, and still that sleepless rock will be watching and 
watching the works- of a new, busy race with those same 
sad, earnest eyes and the same tranquil mien everlast- 
ingly. You dare not mock at the Sphinx." 

The visit of these monuments is made easy, vexing, 
and funny, by an irrepressible rabble of semi-savage Bed- 
awin who live in miserable shanties close by, and claim a 
sort of ownership over the pyramids and the Sphinx, and 
swarm about the traveller like ravenous wolves ; but they 
are only hungry for his money, not for his flesh. In 
ascending the Great Pyramid, two of these swarthy Arabs 
pull you in front by the hand, one or two push from be- 



THE PYRAMIDS. 



49 



hind, and encourage you with broken fragments of half a 
dozen languages : " I good guide, you good baksheesh — 
Patienza signore — Allez doucement — Chi va piano va 
sano e va lontano (the other half, ' chi va forte va alia 
morte,' is omitted) — All serene — Go ahead — Half way 
up — well done — I liky you — Good man — Dear doctor — 
baksheesh." We would willingly give them a double 
portion of the everlasting baksheesh, (although we have 
paid it already to the sheikh,) if they only would leave us 
for a few minutes on the top to enjoy the panorama of 
life and death, and to muse over the boundless past. But 
we cannot get rid of them ; neither sticks nor hard words 
make any impression. One offers you a drink of water ; 
another a chisel to engrave your name ; a third has an- 
tiques for sale as old as Memphis or as new as Birming- 
ham : still another is anxious to run down and to run up 
the polished casing of the pyramid of Chafra in ten min- 
utes like a monkey, and he does it for a franc from each 
traveller. By-and-by some enterprising Yankee will build 
an elevator or lift (as they say in England) to the top of 
the pyramid, and charge a dollar a head. In the mean- 
time we must put up with these human machines. There 
is no use to get out of humor, the best way is to bear the 
annoyance good-naturedly, and to play with these hungry 
children of the desert, who are a necessity and an amuse- 
ment as well as a nuisance. Some are very handsome 
and intelligent-looking fellows, and might be made useful 
men by proper education. 

We- must not leave the Great Pyramid without allu- 
ding to some curious recent speculations about its real 

Bible Lands. 6 



BIBLE LANDS, 



design and value. Every visitor must be impressed with 
its venerable age, colossal size, and unique surroundings. 
But some regard it after all as a very plain, unproductive, 
and useless building, in which nothing can be stored up 
excepting a corpse.* In the opinion of others it is a very 
miracle in stone, a petrifaction of divine wisdom, a pre- 
historic revelation of the mysteries of science, and a 
prophecy of the first and second coming of Christf This 
theory was prepared in part by the measurements of 
Col. Howard Vyse (1837), the discoveries and conjec- 
tures of John Taylor of London (1859 1864), and 
carried out with a great waste of learning and ingenuity 
by Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland 
(1874). Smyth spent with his wife four months at the 
Great Pyramid, and carefully examined its mechanical 
features and mathematical proportions with a variety 
of scientific instruments. He finds the proper solution 
of the riddle of this pyramid, not in the hieroglyphic sci- 
ence of the Egyptologers, but in the mathematical and 
physical science of our day. Its message is expressed, 
not in any written or spoken language, but in scientific 
facts and features now interpreted by science. Accord- 
ingly the pyramid is a prophetic parable in stone, con- 
structed on principles of science, to convey a new proof 
to men in the present age of the existence of a personal 
God, his supernatural interference in patriarchal times, 

* Barham Zincke, "Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedive" 
(London, 1873), P- 61. 

t Piazzi Smyth, in his elaborate books, "Life and Work at the Great 
Pyramid in 1865 " (3 vols., Edinburgh), and " Our Inheritance in the Great 
Pyramid" (London, 1874, i vol., 526 pp., with 17 explanatory plates). 



THE PYRAMIDS, 



51 



and his revelations of the first and second advent of 
Christ. The pyramid stands at the apex (or rather ten 
miles south of the apex) of the Delta of the Nile, and in 
the centre of the habitable globe, or the land surface of 
the earth. It stands four-square on the thirtieth parallel 
of latitude, its four sides facing exactly the four points of 
the compass, north, south, east, and west. There are in 
each side of the base just 365I cubits, which is the pre- 
cise number of days in the year, with the six hours addi- 
tion. Its chief corner-stone is not at the base, but at the 
top, the apex, and symbolizes Christ, " the head corner- 
stone." Psa. 112:22. It has no trace of idolatry in 
writing, painting, or sculpture. The lidless and empty 
coffer in the King's Chamber was never intended for a 
sarcophagus or royal tomb, but it is a metrological mon- 
ument or standard measure of capacity and weight for all 
ages and nations, equivalent to the laver of the Hebrews 
or four quarters of English measure. It accomplishes 
the mathematical feat of squaring the circle, the height 
being to the circumference of the base as the radius is 
to the circumference of a circle. The very name of the 
pyramid means "measure of wheat" (from -^vpbq, wheat, 
and {i^rpov, measure). The Grand Gallery which leads to 
the King's Chamber symbolizes the Christian dispensa- 
tion, and indicates in pyramid inches the thirty-three 
years of the Saviour's earthly lite. The first ascending 
passage represents the Mosaic dispensation, the other 
narrow passages mean lower religions. Such profound 
design and wisdom can only be traced to divine revela- 
tion, like the building of the Tabernacle by Moses. The 



52 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Great Pyramid, though iii Egypt, was not of Egypt, but 
stands in contrast to Egyptian idolatry and beast worship. 
It was probably built by Melchisedek, the friend of Abra- 
ham, the worshipper of the only true God, the priest-king 
who typified our Saviour. He was that mysterious stran- 
ger, the shepherd " Philitis," or Philition," e., a Philis- 
tian from Palestine, who, as Herodotus was informed, fed 
his flocks at Gheezeh about the time when the Great 
Pyramid was built, and took some part in it.* Cheops 
merely furnished the workmen and the material for his 
royal sepulchre ; but Melchisedek executed his plan, 
revealed to him from God, for a monument of the pure 
faith in the midst of surrounding idolatry, and as a sign 
and wonder for after ages. 

This is the astounding theory which has been adopted 
by several respectable English and American writers, 
but is silently ignored by the first Egyptologists of the 
age as unworthy of serious notice. I am unable to fol- 
low Piazzi Smyth into the intricacies of his scientific 

* Herodotus was told by Egyptian priests that "Cheops, on ascending 
the throne, plunged into all manner of wickedness. He closed the tem- 
ples and forbade the Egyptians to offer sacrifices, compelling them instead 
to labor, one and all, in his service," viz.^ in building the Great Pyramid. 
Book IT., chap. 124 (Rawlinson's transl.. Vol. H., p. 169). He states more- 
over (chap. 128) that "the Egyptians so detest the memory of these kings 
[Cheops and Chephren] that they do not much like even to mention their 
names. Hence they commonly call the pyramids [the first and second] 
after Philition, a shepherd who at that tirne fed his flocks about the place." 
This Philition is no doubt a confused and anachronistic allusion to the 
Hyksos or shepherd kings (from Hyk, king, and sos, shepherd), who may 
have invaded Egypt from Palestine or Philistia, and whose memory as 
foreign conquerors was hated by the Egyptians. But their invasion took 
place after the twelfth dynasty, or nearly one thousand years after 
Cheops. 



THE PYRAMIDS, 



S3 



calculations, and measurements. I am quite ready to 
admit, from general impressions, that the builder of this 
monument was in possession of an astonishing amount 
of mathematical and astronomical knowledge. But the 
prophetic theology and Messianic symbolism of the pyra- 
mid seem to me to have no better foundation than the 
conjecture of the famous mediaeval traveller Sir John 
Mandeville, who thought that the pyramids were the 
granaries of Joseph, built for the storage of grain for the 
years of famine. He did not examine the interior, being 
told that they were full of serpents. Piazzi Smyth has 
examined the interior, and put into it a vast deal of his 
own wisdom, after the eisegetical manner of those alle- 
gorical and typological exegetes who make the Scriptures 
responsible for their own pious thoughts and fancies, 
never dreamed of by the sacred writers. Why should the 
Great Pyramid be an exception to all the rest 1 If it is 
free from idolatrous inscriptions, so are the others which 
contain only the cartouches of the royal builders. The 
pyramid of Cheops, moreover, is surrounded by monu- 
ments of idolatry, as' the temple of the Sphinx and the 
Sphinx himself, to whom divine worship was offered. If 
the Grand Gallery prophesies the life of Christ, it should 
certainly lead to something more important than a m^e- 
trological coffer. This would indeed be but one step 
from the sublime to the ridiculous. And if the Great 
Pyramid was intended for a divine sign and wonder, why 
was its meaning hidden for forty or fifty centuries, and 
revealed only in our day.^ Why is there no m.entiou 
whatever of it in the Bible } 

5^' 



54 



BIBLE LANDS. 



We are indeed directed to Isa. 19: 19, 20, where the 
prophet speaks of ''an altar" and a ''pillar," which shall 
be for " a sign and witness unto the Lord of hosts in the 
land of Egypt but this is predicted as a future event 
by Isaiah, who lived many centuries after the building 
of the Great Pyramid. Smyth quotes also Jer. 32 : 20, 
where the prophet speaks of " signs and wonders," which 
the Lord " has set in the land of Egypt, even unto this 
day, and in Israel, and among other men ; and has made 
him a name as at this day." But not to speak of the plu- 
ral which cannot refer to a single building, the very next 
verse shows plainly that Jeremiah alludes to the miracles 
of Moses : " And hast brought forth thy people Israel out 
of the land of Egypt with signs and with wonders, and 
with a strong hand," etc. It is very evident that such 
exegesis is a poor recommendation to the allegorical in- 
terpretation of the pyramid. 

The Bible, as far as I know, alludes but once to the 

pyramids, and then with a certain irony, namely, in Job's 

fearful denunciation of the day of his birth (3 : 11-14) : 

"Why at the birth did I not die- 
When from the womb I came — and breathe my last 1 
Why were the nursing knees prepared 
And why the breasts that I should suck? 
For now in silence had I lain me down ; 
Yea, I had slept and been at rest 
With kings and legislators of the earth — 
The men who built their pyramids — 
Or princes once enriched with gold, 
Their homes with treasure filled." 

The Hebrew word charaboth (nOnn), which in our 
English version is mistranslated desolate places," means- 



THE PYRAMIDS, 



55 



either ruins* or (as the context favors) mausoleums, pyr- 
amids.! 

* So Gesenius, Umbreit, Schlottmann ZQckler (in Lange). Tayler 
Lewis, whose elegant translation (in Lange) I have otherwise given 
above, renders the word by " mouldering monuments," /. e.^ mouldering 
like the memory of those who built them. 

t So some of the best Hebrew scholars and commentators, as Ewald, 
Dillmann, Furst, Renan, Merx, Evans (in Lange). Fiirst gives as the 
first meaning of HDin wilderness; as the second meaning (in the plural 
only) mausoleum, pyramid; and adds, by way of comment, ''The vain 
kings of Egypt built pyramids as their palatial sepulchres, which they 
filled with their treasures." 



56 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

HELIOPOLIS. 

Heliopolis—Significance of the Name— A City of 
Priests and Scholars— Its Antiquity—The Patri- 
archs—Joseph's Marriage— Moses' Education — 
Herodotus, Plato, Strabo— Jeremiah's Prophecy 
—Present Ruins— Sphinxes— Obelisk— Vandalism 
—The Virgin's Tree and the^ Virgin's Fountain- 
Amusing Ignorance of some. Travellers. 

On a sunny afternoon in March I made, in company 
with several American, English, and Scotch fellow-trav- 
ellers, an excursion to the ruins of Heliopolis, the City of 
the Sun, one of the most ancient cities of the world. It 
lies about eight miles northeast of Cairo, and can be 
reached by carriage or donkey over a good road, through 
rich grain-fields, meadows, and vineyards. 

Heliopolis is the Greek name for the Egyptian H-n-re 
(i. e., ''the abode of the sun''), from which was derived 
the Hebrew On or Aon (Gen. 41 : 45), translated Beth- 
Shemesh {i, ^„ the house of the sun, Jer. 43 : 13). It was 
the Rome and Oxford of ancient Egypt, the capital of its 
hierarchy and its university, the centre of its rehgion and 
learning. Every Pharaoh brought his rich offerings to 
this place, and bore the proud title, " Lord of HeliopoHs." 
Here was the sanctuary of the worship of Rah, or the 
sun, and of the sacred bull Mnevis. Here arose the 
legend of the wonder-bird Phoenix, which the early fathers 



HELIOPOLIS, 



57 



employed to illustrate the doctrine of the resurrection. 
Here Joseph the patriarch was married to Asenath, the 
daughter of the priest Potipherah or Potiphar {i. e.^ dedi- 
cated to Rah, or priest of the Sun), and mother of Ma- 
nasseh and Ephraim (Gen. 41:45, 50; 46:20). Here 
(according to Josephus) the family of Jacob first resided 
on their arrival in Egypt. Here Moses was instructed 
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. Here Herodotus, 
the father of history," acquired most of his knowledge 
of that land laid down in his second book, where he calls 
the Heliopolitans " the best skilled in history of all the 
Egyptians." (H. 3.) Here Plato, the prince of Greek 
philosophers, studied, and the house in which he spent 
several years was still shown at the time of Strabo. 

The marriage of Joseph has given rise to Jewish 
legends and an apocryphal novel, which exists in Greek 
and in Syriac under the title, The Life and Confession 
of Asenath, daughter of Pentephres (Potipherah) of He- 
liopolis ; a narrative of what happened when the beauti- 
ful Joseph took her to wife." Asenath, it is said, was a 
proud beauty, living in great splendor with seven attend- 
ants, and disdaining all lovers except Pharaoh's oldest 
son, who loved her, but was forbidden by his father to 
marry her. When she saw Joseph from her window as 
he entered Heliopolis to collect corn in the first year of 
plenty, she was captivated by his beauty, ran down, 
hailed him as My lord, blessed of the most high God," 
and at her father's bidding made bold to kiss him. Jo- 
seph refused to kiss an idolatrous woman, but seeing her 
tears, he laid his hand on her head, and prayed God to 



58 



BIBLE LANDS. 



convert her to the true faith, and then departed. She 
threw her idols out of the window, repented seven days, 
saw an angel of comfort, and was married to Joseph by 
Pharaoh with great pomp. This romance is in an Ethi- 
opic list of canonical Scriptures between Judith and 
Esther. 

The glory of Heliopolis has long since departed, as 
Jeremiah (43:13) predicted: "He shall break the im- 
ages of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and 
the houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn 
with fire." When Strabo visited the city twenty-four 
years before Christ, it was already a heap of ruins. 
Nothing remains now of Heliopolis but some traces of 
the massive walls, fragments of sphinxes, and an obelisk 
of red granite sixty-eight feet high, and bearing the 
name of Usertesen L, the second king of the twelfth dy- 
nasty. It reminded me of the lines of Uhland : 

" Noch eine hohe Siiule zeugt von verschwund'ner Pracht, 
Auch diese, schon geborsten, kann stiirzen iiber Nacht." 

This obelisk is one of two which stood before the Tem- 
ple of the Sun at the inner end of an avenue of sphinxes. 
It is, with the exception of a small obelisk which Lepsius 
discovered in the Necropolis of Memphis, the oldest obe- 
lisk extant. There it has been standing for nearly four 
thousand years, and there it still stands in solitary gran- 
deur and unbroken silence. Had it a mouth to speak, it 
could tell of the visit of Abraham and Sarah, of the wis- 
dom and purity of Joseph, the inquisitiveness of Herod- 
otus, the sublime speculations of Plato, the mysteries of 
Egyptian learning and idolatry, the rise and fall of ancient 



HELIOPOLIS. 



59 



empires. The vandalism of travellers has hacked the 
base of this hoary monument with a sledge-hammer to 
steal some pieces. The bees have built their cells in the 
hieroglyphics of two sides and made them illegible. 

Heliopolis is called in hieroglyphic inscriptions " the 
City of Obelisks," from the great number of these columns 
which once adorned its temples. They represented the 
rays of the sun, and were specially adapted to the wor- 
ship of the sun and the City of the Sun. The two obe- 
lisks of Alexandria which are inappropriately called "the 
Needles of Cleopatra," stood originally in Heliopolis, 
whence they were removed in the reign of Tiberius. One 
of them has again been removed in our own days, and 
stands now in London, a monument of the earliest civili- 
zation in the centre of the latest. The obelisks of the 
Vatican, of the Lateran, and of the Porta del Popolo in 
Rome, are from the same city. 

Obelisks may be called attenuated pyramids. They 
are square monolith columns of limestone, red granite or 
basalt, with a pyramidical apex, and hieroglyphic inscrip- 
tions recording the titles and praises of the royal build- 
ers, and the deity to which they were dedicated. They 
were erected in pairs before temples. The Egyptians 
cut them out of the solid rock, floated them on rafts or 
in boats down the Nile, and raised them by inclined 
planes on the place of their destination. The old Ro- 
» mans transported a number of them to Rome at an im- 
mense expense of labor. 

About fifteen minutes' walk from Heliopolis is the 
venerable sycamore which is called "the Tree of the 



6c 



BIBLE LANDS, 



Virgin/* because Mary, according to the Coptic legend, 
rested there with Jesus after her flight from the wrath of 
Herod. It is certainly a most remarkable tree for its 
size and its gnarled and jagged appearance. The Khedive 
presented it, after the inauguration of the Suez Canal, to 
the French Empress Eugenie, who had it surrounded by 
an iron railing. The Roman-Catholics, however, assert 
that the real tree of the Virgin died in 1665, and they 
show its last fragments in their convent at Cairo. It is 
one of those superstitious legends which nobody can 
either prove or disprove. 

Close by this tree is the so-called Miraculous Foun- 
tain," which, according to the Coptic tradition, was once 
salt, but turned sweet when the Virgin Mary bathed 
the Holy Child in its waters. In the same region are the 
gardens where once flourished the balsam-tree which 
produced the famous Balm of Gilead. Now the cotton- 
plant is cultiv^ated there. 

Heliopolis reminds me of an amusing specimen of 
ignorance. A rich California gold-miner, who had some 
confused recollections of his Sunday-school lessons in 
early youth, and was travelling in Egypt with some 
friends, when informed that in this place Joseph got his 
wife, the daughter of a priest, was quite astonished, and 
indignantly asked, " Was Mary Magdalene, that married 
yoseph, the daughter of a priest V The same gentle- 
man, when crossing the Delta, remarked, We shall soon 
pass the yordaii!' No," said his friend, " the Jordan is 
a river in Palestine." " You are right," he replied, it 
was the Danube I meant !" I met this trav-eller in the 



HELIOPOLIS. 



6i 



Mediterranean Hotel in Jerusalem, when he gave the 
company at the dinner-table the important piece of infor- 
mation that he had just visited Aceldama, ^*the famous 
place w^hich Judas sold for thirty pieces of silver !" I felt 
quite ashamed of America, but was somewhat relieved 
afterward when I asked an English traveller whether he 
had passed through the Desert and visited Mount Sinai, 
and was told that he really did nqt remember, and "must 
first look up his journal !" 



6 



02 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

UP THE NILE, 

The Nile—The Dahabeah and the Steamer— Our 
Company and Dragoman — Memphis and the 
broken Statue of Rameses IL— Sakkara — The Se- 
rapeum— The Temple of Tih — Gebel el-Tayr — 
Minieh and the Sugar-Factories — The Tombs of 
Beni-Hassan — Pictures and Hieroglyphics — Osi- 
out— Dr. Hogg and the American Mission— A 
Mohammedan Saint — Abydos — The Tablet of 
Abydos— The Grave of Osiris— The Temples of 
Denderah. 

The Nile voyage, whether on the old-fashioned daha- 
beah or on a modern steamer, is a perpetual enjoyment 
and one of the best recreations for body and mind. It 
is ''a boating-trip and a donkey-ride interspersed with 
ruins." There, better even than in Italy, you may enjoy 
// dolce far niente. Egypt is the land of sunshine and 
starlight, with a delicious climate. February and March 
are as pleasant as our May and June ; and yet the sum- 
mer is less oppressive there than in New York. 

The Nile is truly a river of life. It spreads fertility 
and plenty east and west on its long course. No wonder 
that it was worshipped as a god. Herodotus calls Egypt 
an acquired country and the gift of the Nile." This is 
as true now as it was three thousand years ago. With- 
out this noble river the land would be as arid and barren 



UP THE NILE. 



63 



as Arabia. In the middle of July the water begins to 
rise, in consequence of the tropical rains and the melt- 
ing of the snows on the mountains of equatorial Africa ; 
in the early part of October it reaches its height, and 
sends its blessings through innumerable canals over the 
fields. The water has been called " the champagne of 
waters." The Nile is the Eastern "father of waters," 
" the high priest of rivers," 

" Whose waves have cast 
More riches round them, as the current rolled 
Through many chmes its solitary flood, 
Than if they surged with gold." 

Invalids and those who have abundance of time pre- 
fer the dahabeah, which depends upon the wind and may 
require three months. But travellers who have but a few 
weeks to spare take the steamer, which makes the voyage 
from Cairo to the»first Cataract and back in twenty days, 
and to the second Cataract from Wady-Halfa (or Halfeh) 
in twelve days more. The whole distance from Alexan- 
andria to the second Cataract is 964J miles. The tourist 
Cook has chartered the steamers from the Khedive, and 
charges £,A^J (^235) for the twenty days' trip, and £,%o 
(^400) for the thirty-two days' trip, including provisions 
and donkey-rides. Every ton of coal has to be brought 
from England. Some take the railroad as far as Osiout, 
and thence either the dahabeah or the steamer, gaining 
in this way nearly a week. But twenty days are not too 
much for a voyage which is fraught with unusual interest 
from beginning to end. 

We start on the 6th of February and return on the 



64 



BIBLE LANDS. 



26th. Our company consists of forty-seven persons, 
English, Scotch, and Americans — clergymen, merchants, 
manufacturers, colonels, captains, two lords, and five 
ladies. We get along very pleasantly, though differing 
widely in taste and occupation. The physician of the 
ship is a Greek, and is more ornamental than useful ; he 
left all his medicine behind, and his services are never 
called for ; he takes part in every excursion, and tries to 
learn a little English. Our dragoman, Mohammed Ale- 
vah, a Moslem from Luxor, is intelligent, obliging, hu- 
morous, and amusing. He had in the same capacity 
accompanied the celebrated Egyptologist, Professor Lep- 
sius of Berlin, Mr. Naville of Geneva, and many others. 
He speaks English fluently, although he cannot read it. 
Every morning at breakfast he unfolds the programme 
for the day with the introductory remark, " I beg your 
pardon, ladies and gentlemen, if you please." Some la- 
dies of our company had a curiosity to see his wife and 
his bright boy, whom he intends to send to the old Uni- 
versity of Cairo, and he gratified them when we arrived 
at Luxor. 

The steamer stops at every place of interest. As 
soon as we arrive at a town, men, women, and children 
flock to the shore and cry for backsheesh. It is amusing 
to see them scramble and fight and dive into the Nile for 
the coppers thrown among them by passengers. The 
little donkeys with their big red saddles are ready to take 
us to the scene of interest, and the fleet, barefooted boys 
who have them in charge run in front or behind for miles 
without getting exhausted. These donkey-rides are very 



UP THE NILE. 



65 



exhilarating. The donkey is easily mounted ; sometimes 
it stumbles and sends the rider gently over its head on 
the sand, or it slips from under him, to the amusement 
of his fellow-travellers. 

The first excursion is made to Memphis, over fertile 
fields and through stately palm-groves. The ancient 
capital of Lower Egypt, founded by the first king, Menes, 
is all desolation. Nothing is left of its temples, palaces, 
and monuments, but a colossal statue of Rameses II., 
lying mutilated on the face in the mud. What a satire 
on the great Sesostris, the conqueror of many lands, the 
master-builder of Egypt and the oppressor of the chil- 
dren of Israel ! Thus the prophecy of Jeremiah (46 : 19) 
was literally fulfilled : " Noph (Memphis) shall be waste 
and desolate without an inhabitant." 

About two miles farther in the desert is Sakkara, the 
necropolis of Memphis, the subterranean Serapeum with 
the colossal empty sarcophagi of the sacred bulls, eleven 
small pyramids, and the temple qf Tih, with most inter- 
esting and well-preserved frescoes that reveal in bright 
colors as of yesterday the life of ancient Egypt and the 
all-pervading power of kingcraft and priestcraft. An in- 
spection of the remains of Egyptian bull-worship explains 
the ease with which the Israelites so soon after their de- 
parture took to the worship of the golden calf in the wil- 
derness. 

We resume the journey and pass the extensive lime- 
stone rock of Gebel el-Tayr, on the east bank of the 
river, and in sight of the famous Coptic convent, or, 
rather, village of priests and their wives, walled in against 

6* 



66 



BIBLE LANDS, 



the Bedawin. Descending from their precipice the 
monks used to swim to the steamers and dahabeahs to 
solicit alms on the ground of a common Christianity and 
humanity. The Coptic patriarch has recently forbidden 
this nuisance. 

At MiNiEH, the next stopping-place and one of the 
best-looking towns on the Nile, 156 miles from Cairo, we 
inspect an extensive sugar-factory of the Khedive, which 
looks almost like a profanation of old Egypt, but beto- 
kens a new epoch of material progress. The factories of 
the Khedive, however, so far are said to have been far 
from being profitable to him. 

At Beni-Hassan, which is 171 miles from Cairo, we 
inspect the famous rock tombs on a ridge of hills. They 
are cut in the rock, and devoted to noble men and women 
of the neighborhood from the age of the patriarchs. They 
present a vast gallery of fresco-pictures, some defaced 
and disfigured, some still fresh and setting forth in glow- 
ing colors the various scenes of ancient Egyptian life. 
In these mansions of the dead you see *^men and women 
wrestling, fishing, ploughing and reaping, trapping birds, 
giving dinner-parties, being flogged, cutting their toe- 
nails, treading the winepress, dancing, playing the harp, 
weaving linen, playing at catchball, being shaved by the 
barber, playing at draughts. Verily, there is nothing 
new under the sun. .... The old, old story of human 
life is there, told as in a picture-book. Though seen 
through a gap of four thousand years, the eye moistens 
over it still. Here are life's festive scenes and revels- — 
the winecup and the garland ; and here its scenes of sor- 



UP THE NILE. 



67 



row — mourners are weeping over their dead. Nothing 
is lacking. And so, by the mystic sympathy — that touch 
of nature which links man with man — you reach out a 
hand across the ages and feel the throbbings of a human- 
ity kindred with your own." Among these pictures is 
the famous procession of Asiatics, which is supposed by 
some to be the presentation of Joseph and his brethren 
to Pharaoh, or possibly a deputation of Israelites after 
their settlement in Goshen. 

The hieroglyphic inscriptions tell of warlike expedi- 
tions, and are full of vain self-glorifications. Here is a 
specimen from the German translation by Brugsch.* 
Ameni, who died in the year 43 of the reign of King 
Usertesen I. (the builder of the Obelisk in Heliopolis), 
relates the story of his life on the door of entrance : In 
honor of the governor of the province of Mah (here fol- 
low other titles), who has overcome (death). I accompa- 
nied my lord on his expedition to defeat the enemies of 

the country I entered the land Kasch (Kush of 

the Bible) up the river, and came to the extreme border 
of the country. I conducted the booty of my lord, and 
my praise reached to heaven when his holiness happily 
returned. He had defeated his enemies in the miserable 

land Kasch I was a kind lord, of mild disposition, 

a prince who loved his city. I spent many a year as 
prince in the province of Mah. All the labors for the 
king's house were in my hands. The superintendents of 
the temples of the gods in the province of Mah gave me 
thousands of bulls and calves The whole province 

* Gesck. ^gyptens^ pp. 128-130. 



68 



BIBLE LANDS. 



labored for me. I oppressed no son of the poor, no 
widow. I expelled no owner of land, no shepherd. No 
one was unhappy in my time, no one hungry, not even in 
the years of famine," etc. The last and some following 
words seem to allude to the age of Joseph and the seven 
years of famine. But there are other more unmistakable 
allusions to Joseph and the famine in the tombs of El- 
Kab, which Brugsch has recently brought to light.* 

On returning to the boat about fifty half-naked Arabs 
surround us, screaming and scrambling for backsheesh; 
the sheikh drives off the boys with dirt and catches the 
coppers himself, but the crowd return again and again 
like ravenous wolves, until the steamer sails at eleven 
o'clock. We pass high cliffs with natural caves, in one 
of which St. Athanasius is said to have hid himself in 
his flight from Arian persecution. 

The same night or next morning we reach Ostout 
(or AsYOOT, Sioot), the capital of Upper Egypt, with 
about 30,000 inhabitants, and 250 miles from Cairo. 
It lies a mile west of the river. We pass through the 
Arab bazaar, and cannot ride nor walk through the curi- 
ous medley without touching men, camels, and donkeys 
to the right and left. We visit the rock-tombs of the 
sacred wolves which were worshipped here (hence the 
ancient Greek name Lycopolis, i, e.^ Wolfstown), and 
ascend the mountain behind the city, from which we en- 
joy a beautiful view over rich green fields and the yel- 
low sand of the Lybian desert. Between the city and 
the mountain lies a large Arab cemetery, with shining 

* Gesch. /Egypteits^ p. 244, seq. 



UP THE NILE. 



69 



white monuments, better looking than the city of the 
living. 

But the most interesting sight in Osiout is to me 
the large house and church of the American Presbyte- 
rian mission at the southern edge of the city. There we 
find the Rev. Dr. Hogg, a Scotchman, with his wife, 
Rev. Mr. Alexander of America, and two assistants, en- 
gaged in the noble and self-denying work of instructing 
Coptic boys and girls in the elements of education and 
the religion of the New Testament. The girls sing 
hymns and recite geography with great ease and cheer- 
fulness. Dr. Hogg is a tall, intelligent, and energetic 
missionary, and has an excellent library, including such 
works as the American edition of Lange's Commentary, 
Ueberweg's History of Philosophy, Van Oosterzee's Dog- 
matics. His Protestant church is already self-support- 
ing. He has also founded a theological school, where 
half a dozen young Copts are preparing for missionary 
work. This mission is a beaconlight of. truth in the 
midst of surrounding Mohammedan and Coptic darkness, 
and a prophecy of a better future that dawns over Egypt. 

Proceeding on our journey, between Girgeh and Den- 
dera we see a strange specimen of Mohammedan asceti- 
cism ; a reputed saint sitting in the sand on the banks of 
the Nile, unclothed even to indecency, surrounded by a 
dozen admirers. The sailors come up and kiss his hand. 
He is sunburnt, has gray hair, looks stupid, and says 
little. In this position he is said to have been for forty- 
five years. He almost comes up to the glory of Simeon 
Stylites, who in the fifth century spent six-and-thirty 



70 



BIBLE LANDS. 



years on a pillar under the scorching Syrian sun, the 
drenching rain, the howling storm, preaching, praying, 
bowing, and vainly striving after superhuman perfection. 
Alfred Tennyson has graphically described his experience 
in a monologue to God. 

By a donkey ride of six miles from Bellianeh, across 
fertile fields of grain and beans to the border of the des- 
ert, we reach Abydos. It is remarkable for its temple 
ruins, as the birthplace of Mena or Menes, the first Egyp- 
tian king, and as the burial place of Osiris, the chief 
Egyptian divinity. It was once second only to Thebes 
among the cities of that country. In the ruins of the 
temple of Sethi I. (the father of Rameses IL), we tarry 
before the magnificent pictures and sculptures, and the 
famous new Tablet of Abydos, which was brought to 
light by the excavation of Mariette-Bey in 1865, and of 
which the old Tablet in the British Museum found in the 
neighboring temple of Rameses IL in 18 18, is an imper- 
fect copy. It presents Sethi the king, and Rameses the 
prince, offering, the one five, the other two rolls of hymns 
before the cartouches (shields or coats of arms enclosing 
hieroglyphic signs of royal names) of seventy-six kings, 
from Menes down to Sethi I. There are seventy-six 
cartouches, besides that of Sethi, which is often repeated 
in the lowest line. The historical value of this Tablet is 
very great. Brugsch counts from Mena (4400 b. c.) to 
Sethi I. of the nineteenth dynasty (1366 b. c), 3,034 years. 
But the Egyptian chronology, according to his own con- 
fession, is still far from being satisfactorily settled, and 
may undergo serious modifications. 



UP THE NILE, 



71 



In about five minutes from this temple ruin we reach 
a mound of debris called Kom-es-Sultan, beneath which 
is the supposed tomb of Osiris. Mariette-Bey hopes to 
find it by excavation. It was to the ancient Egyptians 
as sacred as the church of the Holy Sepulchre is to the 
Greek and Latin Christians. Around it were myriads of 
tombs of rich Egyptians who wished to be buried near 
this chief god. Osiris was a mortal god who died and 
rose again. He, his wife and sister Isis, and their son 
and avenger Horus, the slayer of the evil spirit Ty- 
phon, form a sort of trinity in unity. 

The next place of interest is the temple of Dende- 
RAH (Tentyra), on the west bank of the Nile about sixty 
miles above Abydos. We cross the river in miserable 
boats, together with the donkeys. There are three tem- 
ples there in a pretty good state of preservation. The 
great temple dedicated to Athor, the Egyptian Venus, 
was completed under Nero, and shows the influence of 
Greek and Roman art, but is nevertheless the most im- 
posing temple-ruin this side of Karnak, and gives a good 
idea of an Egyptian sanctuary. The great hall has 
twenty-four columns, crowned with the heads of Isis and 
adorned with carvings and hieroglyphics. In the inte- 
rior there are several chapels and chambers for the king, 
the priests, the treasury, the priestly vestments, the 
sacred animals, the preparation for festivals and proces- 
sions. On the colossal pillars and walls there is a profu- 
sion of symbolical and astronomical representations, and 
pictures of the gods, and of serpents, which appear in 
every attitude, some walking on human legs, and offering 



72. 



BIBLE LANDS. 



strange offerings to the deities. On the ceiling of the 
portico is a picture of the famous Zodiac, whic?i was once 
thought to be very ancient, but cannot be older than the 
reign of Augustus. Outside on the wall is a statue of 
the voluptuous Queen Cleopatra, and her son by Julius 
Caesar. The view from the terraced roof extends ovei; 
Arab and Coptic houses, green fields, the Nile, and the 
chain of hills beyond towards the Red Sea. 




LUXOR: 



FROM THE NILE. 



LUXOR AND THEBES. 



73 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LUXOR AND THEBES. 

The Ancient Splendor of Thebes— The Temple and 
Obelisk of Luxor— A Fantasia— The Temple Ruins 
of Karnak— A Forest of Columns— The largest 
Obelisk — Shishak's Victory over Rehoboam — 
Thebes— The Temple of Koorneh— The Tombs of 
the Kings— The Rameseum— The Temple of Ram- 
eses III.— The Two Colossi. 

At Luxor the steamer stops three days, for here is 
the culmination of interest. 

Luxor, Karnak, Thebes, are the three names for 
what was once the one city of Thebes (the Hekatompylos 
Thebe of Homer, the Diospolis of the later Greeks, the 
No or No-Ammon of the Old Testament), which in the 
days of its glory (1600 to 800 b. c.) stretched about 
thirty-three miles on both banks of the Nile. They are 
now a vast field of ruins and miserable Arab mud villages. 
The prediction of Jeremiah and Ezekiel that the city of 
No shall be " cut off " and rent asunder," has been lit- 
erally fulfilled. But the ruins which testify to her former 
splendor are the most enormous and imposing in the 
world, not excepting the ruins of Baalbek and the Col- 
osseum in Rome. Those temples and rock-tombs are 
fully equal to the pyramids in the neighborhood of Mem- 
phis. The rock-tombs, intended for the same purpose of 
royal sepulchres, are more complicated and interesting. 

Laud of tho, Bible. 7 



74 



BIBLE LANDS, 



At Thebes and Karnak you wander among the ruins of 
god-like men and human gods, the mysteries of king- 
craft and priestcraft. We must admit that the old Egyp- 
tians were the masterbuilders of the world, and high 
above all the Pharoahs rose Sethi I. and Rameses II. 

Luxor lies close on the eastern bank. We see at 
once, before we land, the lofty colonnade of a vast temple, 
and the obelisk whose companion was transported to the 
Place de la Concorde in Paris under the reign of Louis 
Philippe. Our dragoman, who resides in Luxor, informs 
us that he saw it removed when a boy (in 1833) by 2,000 
Arabs under 400 French officers. In striking contrast 
with these ruins are the wretched huts of the present 
inhabitants, except the residences of the English, Amer- 
ican and German consuls. They are natives of the coun- 
try, and very polite to strangers. Having nothing else 
to do, they show them the antiquities which they keep 
for sale, and invite them to evening entertainments, con- 
sisting of smoking, wretched Arab music, and strange 
dancing called a "fantasia.'' 

An hour s ride from Luxor over a grassy plain brings 
us to the temple ruins of Karnak, one of the greatest 
wonders of this land of wonders. An avenue of two 
hundred sphinxes, whose pedestals still remain, while the 
ram-heads are all broken off but one, leads to the south- 
ern entrance of the temple ; similar avenues led to the 
other five entrances. The temple itself is nearly two 
miles in circumference, and is surrounded by walls of 80 
feet height and 25 feet thickness. A magnificent portal 
or propylon, 370 feet broad, 140 feet high, opens into a 



LUXOR AND THEBES, 75 

vast court, and there we are in a forest of 120 majestic 
columns, 66 feet high, 36 feet in circumference, surmount- 
ed by capitals and adorned with pictures and hiero- 
glyphics. There too, surrounded by the Osiris pillars, is 
the largest obelisk known, being 92 feet high and 8 feet 
square, which (as we learn from an inscription) was once 
gilded from top to bottom and surmounted by a small 
pyramid of pure gold. One of the pictures on the walls is 
a war-scene of Rameses II., and Shishak's victory over 
the kings of more than thirty nations, including Reho- 
boam the son of Solomon (971 b. c), which confirms the 
•account in i Kings 14 : 25, 26, and 2 Chron. 12 : 2-9 : ''So 
Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem and 
took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and 
the treasures of the king's house ; he took all ; he car- 
ried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had 
made/' The figure of Rehoboam, which bears the in- 
scription "The King of Judah," has a strong Jewish 
countenanee. 

Thebes, on the western bank of the Nile, was the 
necropolis of the whole city, and abounds in mummies 
of men and sacred animals and in imposing monuments 
which it would take many chapters to describe. There 
is the Temple of Koorneh, reared by King Sethi to the 
memory of his father Rameses 1. 

There are the Tombs of the kings of the eighteenth, 
nineteenth, and twentieth dynasties, cut in the solid 
limestone rocks of a desolate, mysterious valley, and full 
of colored sculptures and fantastic paintings of strange 
jackal-headed gods, serpents, monsters, good and evil 



76 



BIBLE LANDS. 



spirits, dinner-parties, scenes of dancing, boating, fighting, 
hunting, and every-day Hfe, and the mysteries of death, 
resurrection, and judgment. The tomb of Sethi I. reachr 
es back 470 feet into the mountain, with a descent of 180 
feet. These royal sepulchres or catacombs correspond 
in size, like the pyramids, to the length of the reign of 
the builders ; but, unlike the pyramids, which have but 
one chamber for the royal mummy, they represent, in 
many apartments and halls, as in the galleries of a great 
museum, the whole earthly life and surroundings of the 
king, and his fate in the other world. At the end of the 
galleries is his immense granite coffin, surrounded by rich 
pictures on the walls and ceiling. It is supposed by 
some ctiter the burial of the king, the tomb with its 
treasures of gold and art was closed, and never intended 
to be seen by mortal man, except the king himself at his 
resurrection. And yet, in spite of these precautions, no 
royal mummy has been discovered. Along the foot of 
the hills is one vast necropolis for the priesta, high offi- 
cers of state, and rich individuals. Nowhere out of Egypt 
can such a cemetery be found. The catacombs of Rome 
are poor and humble, like the early Christians in the times 
of persecution. The Theban catacombs are a subterra- 
nean city of palaces, with spacious halls and apartments, 
gorgeous decorations, and every sign of life that art can 
represent in fresh colors as of yesterday ; but life itself 
is gone, or turned into stone — hard, cold, yet silently 
eloquent stone. 

We next visit the Rameseum, or Memnonium, a truly 
wonderful temple, built by Rameses II. (Sesostris) to 



LUXOR AND THEBES. 



77 



perpetuate his conquests and glory. It is his autobiog- 
raphy in stones. His own granite statue is the most 
gigantic extant, but was overthrown by some catastrophe 
and mutilated by the Arabs, and represents the monarch 
in majestic repose towering above gods and men. 

Then we come to the Palace and Temple of Rame- 
SES III., with its labyrinth of columns, courts, statues, his- 
toric, military, and domestic pictures and inscriptions. 

Finally we see the two Colossi, or immense statues, 
before the propylon of the destroyed temple of Ameno- 
phis III, rising sixty feet above the sand. They are now 
mutilated, but "still keep their untiring watch over the 
lapse of ages and the eclipse of Egypt." One of them is 
the vocal Memnon so celebrated for its mu^' ^^'' sounds, 
which it uttered when touched by the morning be'ams of 
the rising sun as a salutation of Amenophis to his mother 
Aurora. 

The mind is overwhelmed by these stupendous mon- 
uments of the ancient history and religion of Egypt, and 
we gladly repair to the steamer for rest. 



7* 



78 



BIBLE LANDS, 



CHAPTER IX. 

FROM LUXOR TO PHIL^, 

The Temple of Edfou— Assouan— Elephantine— Phi- 
lae— The <F.irst Cataract— Aboo Simbel— Return to 
Cairo. 

After Karnak and Thebes we do not expect to see 
anything so grand in architectural and sculptured ruins 
and petrified history. And yet the remainder of the 
voyage is full of interest. 

We next visit the Temple of Edfou, the best pre- 
served and most complete in Egypt. It was built under 
the Ptolemies, requiring a period of i8o years, 3 months, 
and 14 days, from 237 to 57 b. It stands in the mid- 
dle of the village of that name, and was dug up from the 
rubbish by Mariette in 1864 under the direction of the 
Khedive. It is 450 feet long, the propylon 250 feet 
broad ; the towers are 115 feet high, and can be ascend- 
ed by 250 steps. It is surrounded by walls covered with 
hieroglyphic inscriptions. It affords the best idea of an 
Egyptian temple. It was not a place for a public con- 
gregation, but a sanctuary or sort of sacristy for kings 
and priests, a home for the gods, a depository of treasure 
and sacred vestments, a place of preparation for festivals 
and processions. The people were shut out. 

Assouan, the ancient Syene, is 580 miles from Cairo, 

* Brugsch, p. 258. 



FROM LUXOR TO PHIL^. 



79 



on the boundary between Egypt and Nubia. It is a very 
interesting town with about 4,000 inhabitants of differ- 
ent races. The Nubians attract most attention : they 
are almost naked, and as dark as our negroes, but better 
formed, more intelligent-looking, tall and slender. The 
women wear an apron decorated with shells, and, like 
Mother Eve, are, "unadorned, adorned the most." The 
bazaar presents a curious medley of races, with donkeys, 
camels, and merchandise, such as elephants' teeth, skins, 
ebony clubs, spears, lances, arrows, straw-baskets, coins, 
stuffed crocodiles, and ostrich feathers and eggs. Miss 
Martineau relates that a girl offered her an English half- 
penny for sale, and that her ear-trumpet was examined 
with quick curiosity and taken to be a pipe with an enor- 
mous bowl ! 

In the neighborhood of Assouan are the famous quar- 
ries which furnished materials for the statues, temples, 
pyramids, and palaces of the Pharaohs. Islands, quar- 
ries, crags along the river side," says Dean Stanley, "all 
seem either like grotesque colossal figures, sitting with 
their grim features carved out against the sky, their vast 
limbs often smoothed by the inundations of successive 
ages, or else, like the same statues, broken to shivers. 
One can quite imagine how, in the days when power was 
will and will was power, Rameses, returning from his 
Ethiopian conquests, should say, ' Here is the stone, hard 
and glittering, from which my statue shall be hewn, and 
here is the model after which it shall be fashioned.' " 

We must not miss seeing the famous obelisk in the 
quarry, half-finished and half-imbedded in the rock. It 



8o 



BIBLE LANDS, 



is the youngest, as that of Heliopolis is the oldest, of the 
obehsks, and it will never be removed from its birthplace. 
We wonder at the mechanical powers with which such 
immense blocks of stone could be detached, dressed, 
lifted, and carried down the river, and then erected some 
hundreds of miles away from home. 

The island of Elephantine, opposite Assouan and 
extending to the foot of the cataract, is no more an " Isl- 
and of Flowers," but half-covered with rubbish, broken 
pottery, and a few ruins of a temple. The most inter- 
esting object there is a Nilometre to indicate the rise 
and fall of the divine river Nilus. 

We leave Assouan by camel or donkey through the 
desert for Phil^ and the First Cataract. This was 
the southern limit of the journey of Herodotus. 

Philae is a beautiful, flowery island of palm-trees and 
temple ruins above the cataract. By a judicious expense 
of capital and labor it might be made an Isola Bella or 
Isola Madre, with a delightful climate in winter. Ruins 
of temples of Osiris and Horus, with sculptures describing 
the death, burial, resurrection, and enthronement of Osi- 
ris, attract our attention. They date from the period of 
the Greek Ptolemies who restored the old Egyptian idol- 
atry. Paganism lingered in this remote island many 
years after the edict of Theodosius. 

A steamer is waiting to take a few passengers farther 
up the Nile through Nubia to the Second Cataract, to 
see the wonderful temple of Aboo Simbel, or Ipsambool 
(t/o miles south of Phite), cut in the solid rock, with four 
statues of Rameses II., so colossal that his ear, mouth, 




THE COLOSSI OF MEMNON : THEBES. 




THE TEMPLE-FRONT OF ABOO SIMBEL. 



FROM LUXOR TO PHIL^, 8i 



nose, and every limb of his body has the size and weight 
of a separate statue. But we must forego this pleasure, 
and advise the reader to peruse the graphic description 
of Miss Amelia B. Edwards, who spent several days 
there.^ 

We return on the western side of the First Cataract. 
The Nile here widens into a lake with many islands of 
various fantastic formations and colors, and rushes foam- 
ing and roaring over the rocks of porphyry and granite. 
Naked Nubians shoot down the Cataract on blocks of 
wood for a few shillings. The passage down the river is 
made in a few days with few and short stoppages. 

We have drunk from the Nile, feasted on ruins of 
temples and tombs, and communed with Rameses the 
Great, and with the greater Moses, his younger contem- 
porary and antagonist ; and we arrive in Cairo enriched 
with a photographic gallery of the wonders of old Egypt. 

* A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, Being a Jotirftey through Egypt and 
Nubia to the Second Cataract, London, 1877. 



82 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER X . 

EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 

" And Jesus answered and said, I tell you that, if these shall hold their 
peace, the stones will cry out." Luke 19 : 40. 

Sources of Knowledge of Ancient Egypt — The Pen- 
tateuch, Manetho, Herodotus — The Monuments 
and Hieroglyphic Inscriptions — The Papyri— 
Champollion, Young, Brugsch, Birch— Egypt and 
the Pentateuch — The Works of Hengstenberg, 
Ebers, Vigouroux— Egyptian and Biblical Chro- 
nology—Abraham's Visit — Joseph in Egypt— Mo- 
ses and Pharaoh — Rameses II., the Pharaoh of 
the Oppression— Menephtha I., the Pharaoh of 
the Exodus— General Results— Egyptian History 
and Bible History. 

Till quite recently, our knowledge of ancient Egypt 
was confined to three scanty sources. 

1. The Pentateuch, and occasional allusions in later 
books of the Old Testament. 

2. The remains of Manetho, a priest under the reign 
of the first two Ptolemies (between 300 and 250 b. c), 
who wrote in Greek a history of the Pharaohs from the 
sacred records of Heliopolis. Some fragments of it and 
a catalogue of thirty royal dynasties from Menes down 
to Nectanebo, 343 b. c, have been preserved through 
Josephus ("against Apion"), Julius Africanus ('' Chro- 
nographia," a. d. 220, indirectly through Syncellus, a. d. 
800), and Eusebius (" Chronicon.")* 

* The remains of Manetho and other ancient authorities are conve- 
niently printed in the first volume of Chevalier Bunsen's Egypfs Place in 



EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 83 



3. The accounts of Greek travellers, who visited 
Egypt, Herodotus (b. c. 454), Diodorus Siculus (b. c. 58), 
and Strabo (about b. c. 30). Herodotus was not a criti- 
cal historian, but a story-teller, who believed and told 
what he saw and heard with the simplicity of a child, 
without raising the question of veracity. Yet he was no 
holiday traveller; he had an intense curiosity, and gath- 
ered a vast deal of information, which has been partly 
verified by modern research. The information of Plu- 
tarch and the elder Pliny on Egyptian matters is derived 
from secondary sources, but the former gives an instruc- 
tive account of the worship of Isis and Osiris. 

These sources of information have been greatly en- 
larged in the present century, by the study of monu- 
mental inscriptions and papyrus rolls. Napoleon's expe- 
dition to Egypt had a similar effect upon Europe as 
Alexander's victories had upon Asia ; both brought the 
East and the West into closer contact, enlarged the 
sphere of knowledge, and stimulated progress. The 
Egyptians were most industrious scribes, and their liter- 
ature, though far behind the Greek and Roman in ge- 
nius and general interest, is very extensive in theology, 
government, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and poe- 
try, except the drama. 

The hieroglyphic, the shorter hieratic, and the popu- 
lar demotic inscriptions on temple walls, tombs, and 
pyramids, in pictures and sculptures, were a sealed book 

Universal History^ translated from the German by Cottrell (London, 1848), 
pp. 605-731, and in the Synoptical Tablets appended to the Konigsbuch 
of Prof. Lepsius (Berlin, 1858). 



84 



BIBLE LANDS. 



till the accidental discovery of the famous Rosetta stone 
(1799), thirty-six miles east of Alexandria, by a French 
officer of artillery. It is an oblong square slab of black 
syenitic basalt, nowin possession of the British Museum, 
and contains a,triple inscription, namely, a decree of the 
priests in honor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, in the Egyptian 
language (both in hieroglyphic and demotic characters),' 
together with a Greek translation. By means of this 
translation, and with the aid of the Coptic or old Egyp- 
tian language, it was possible to construct the hiero- 
glyphic alphabet and to interpret the inscription. The 
name of King Ptolemy, which, like all the royal names, is 
enclosed in an elliptical frame or cartouch, gave the first 
clew to the alphabet. Another bilingual inscription, with 
the cartouch of Cleopatra (which has five sounds in com- 
mon with Ptolemaios) was afterwards discovered on a 
small obelisk at Philae. The cartouch of Alexander aid- 
ed in a similar manner. 




EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 85 




ALEXANDER." 



The hieoroglyphic signs are partly ideographic or pic- 
torial, partly phonetic. A French Egyptologist, Jean 
Francois ChampoUion (b. 1790, d. 1832), and a learned 
English physician, Thomas Young (1816), independently 
and almost simultaneously led the way in the deciphering 
of the hieroglyphic inscriptions. The results are summed 
up in a complete hieroglyphic and demotic dictionary and 
grammar by the English Egyptologist, Samuel Birch 
(in the 5th volume of Bunsen's Egypt's Place in History ^ 
PP- 335-716), and by the German Egyptologist, H. 
Brugsch (1867). 

The Papyrus rolls were discovered in tombs and 
mummies, and transferred to the Egyptian museums in 
Boulak, Turin, London, Paris, BerHn, Leyden. The 
most important are the Turin Papyrus (published by 
Lepsius 1842 and 1858) ; the list of kings from the Tem- 
ple of Abydos (published by De Roug^ and Mariette, 
1864); the Papyrus Rollin (edited by Pleyte, 1868); the 
Papyrus Ebers (1873), of the seventeenth century before 
Christ, and the Papyrus Harris, published by Birch, 
which contains the chief contribution to the history of 
Rameses III. 

From all these sources modern French, German, and 

Bible Lauds. 8 



86 



BIBLE LANDS. 



English scholars have endeavored to construct a consec- 
utive chronological history of ancient Egypt* 

The history of Egypt is not an unbroken current. It 
is a monotonous, dreary waste, like the desert, with a 
few prominent kings and events. The hieroglyphic in- 
scriptions are filled with figures of kings worshipping 
animal gods, strange names, high-sounding titles, and 
eulogies of kings and governors, their victories and meri- 
torious deeds. The people are simply a mass of name- 
less slaves, used as machines in war and in peace. 

The readers of this book will feel a special interest 
in the bearings of the latest Egyptological researches 
upon Bible history. 

The relation of Egypt and the Pentateuch has been 
chiefly discussed by two Protestant scholars — the late Dr. 
Hengstenberg of Berlin, in his book. Die BiXcher Moses 
tend yEgypten (1841), and Dr. Ebers of Leipzig, in his 
^gypten und die Bucher Moses (Vol. I., i868).t The 
titles are characteristic. Hengstenberg, the theologian, 
writing in the apologetic interest, puts the Pentateuch 

* We mention especially the elaborate works of Samuel Sharpe 
{Early History of Egypt, London, 1836, 2 vols.), Bunsen (Egypfs Place 
in Universal History, 5 vols., first in German, then in English, London, 
1848 to 1867), Prof. Lepsius (Chronologie der jEgypter, Berlin, 1849; 
Denkmaler aiis jEgypten itnd ^thiopieiis 1856; Das Kojtigsbuck, 1858; 
Das Todtenbuch, etc.), and Dr. Brugsch-Bey [Histoire d'Egypte, Leipzig, 
1859, and his more recent Geschichte jEgypte7ts unter den Pharaonen, Leip- 
zig, 1877, which is based almost entirely on the dismembered monumental 
records). 

t The second volume has not yet appeared, but his work Durch Go- 
sen zum Sinai, Leipzig, 1872, may be regarded in part as a continuation, 
as it discusses the period of the oppression and of the Exodus of the Is- 
raelites, 



EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 



87 



first, and treats the Egyptian historian Manetho with 
contempt ; Ebers, the Egyptologist, with a purely histor- 
ical aim in view, puts Egypt first, and regards the Pen- 
tateuch from the Egyptian point of view, allowing due 
credit to Manetho-; yet both come substantially to the 
same conclusion as to the genuine egypticity of the 
Bible records on Egypt, in opposition to the older Ra- 
tionahsts. "The history of Joseph," says Ebers, "even 
in its details, is thoroughly consistent with the true rela- 
tions of ancient Egypt" (Preface, p. 12). Still more re- 
cently a Roman-catholic scholar, F. Vigouroux, has 
attempted a complete vindication of the Bible history 
from the modern Egyptian and Assyrian discoveries, 
beginning with the account of Creation and ending with 
the Exodus, and a discussion of the Hebrew doctrine of 
immortality.* 

There are four points of contact betw^een the history 
of ancient Egypt and the Bible history of Israel : the 
chronology, the visit of Abraham, the history of Joseph, 
and the Exodus under Moses. After the Exodus Egypt 
is not mentioned in the Bible till the time of Solomon, 
who married a daughter of Pharaoh and brought her into 
the city of David (i Kings 3:19). 

* La Bible et les decouvertes modemes ert Egypte et en Assyrie. Par F. 
Vigouroux, /re/r^ de Saint- Sulpice. Paris, 1877, 2 vols. This is a learned 
and valuable work, but is disfigured by an attack on Protestantism, which 
the author makes responsible for rationalism and infidelity. He begins 
a preliminary history of German rationalism with the unjust remark, Le 
rationalisme biblique est le fils de Luther " (p. 7). The defence of the 
supernatural revelation of the Bible should be the common task of Cath- 
olics and Protestants, and in fact Vigouroux draws his best material for 
defence from Protestant scholars of Germany. 



88 



BIBLE LANDS, 



I. THE CHRONOLOGY. 

The chronology of Egypt seems irreconcilable with 
the traditional views on the chronology of the Bible. 
But both chronologies are still in a state of confusion, 
and cannot be satisfactorily settled with our present 
means of information. 

The Egyptians, like the Babylonians, Indians, and 
Chinese, were extravagant in their claim to antiquity. 
The priests who informed Herodotus four hundred and 
fifty years before Christ, claimed at that time an age of 
341 generations, or more than 11,000 years, for their na- 
tion, from their first King Menes to Sethos (Sethi), du- 
ring which "no god had ever appeared in a human form" 
(II., 142); and beyond this Menes are the mythical ages 
of the gods. Some take Menes himself to be a mythical 
being, a personification of the two Misrs (the Hebrew 
Mizraim), or provinces of Upper and Lower Egypt. The 
Egyptians themselves never had any chronology, and 
only numbered the years of each reign of a king. The 
dynastic lists and figures of Manetho have come down 
to us in a fragmentary and mutilated state, and in two 
widely-different recensions, through Eusebius and Af- 
ricanus (as given by Syncellus, who lived in the age 
of Charlemagne). They differ again from a chronolo- 
gical fragment of Eratosthenes, to which Bunsen gives 
the preference as far as it goes. They are partly con- 
firmed, but also partly proved worthless (as Brugsch as- 
serts) by monumental records. Manetho's reigns and 
even his dynasties cannot all be successive, but some of 



EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 89 



them must be synchronous, in accordance with certain 
monumental inscriptions and with the natural division of 
the country into Upper and Lower Egypt. Manetho 
himself speaks of contemporary " kings of Thebais and 
of the other provinces of Egypt," and the monuments 
represent one king meeting another, and mention the 
years of one king's reign corresponding with those of 
another. This fact at once greatly reduces the five thou- 
sand or more years which the champions of successive 
dynasties suppose to have elapsed between Menes and 
Alexander the Great. Besides, it is impossible on either 
theory to ascertain the precise length of the several 
reigns. In the first eighteen dynasties not one solitary 
date has been fixed with certainty. Brugsch allows to 
each Pharaoh an average of thirty-three years, or only 
three reigns in a century; while others, with greater 
probability, diminish the average length of reigns one- 
half. Accordingly the Egyptologists vary in their esti- 
mates over 3,000 years. 

The first Pharaoh, Menes, or Mena, began to reign, 



According to Boeckh B. c. 5702. 

" " Unger • '* 56i3« 

' " " Mariette and Lenormant " 5004. 

« Brugsch I. " 4455. 

" ** Brugsch 11. " 4400. 

" " Chabas - " 4000. 

" " Lepsius and Ebers — " 3892. 

" " Bunsen (earlier view) " 3623. 

** " Bunsen (later view) " 3039« 

" " Birch " 3000. 

" " Poole " 2700. 

" " Wilkinson " 2691. 

" G. Ravvlinson " 2450. 

8* 



90 



BIBLE LANDS. 



The latest writers on the subject, who widely differ 
in their views, frankly admit that Egyptian chronology 
is still utterly uncertain and needs reconstruction.* We 
must therefore wait for further light and a better agree- 
ment among Egyptologists. 

And as to the Bible chronology, theologians are still 
divided between the long system of the Septuagint, 
which would put the creation of man 5400 years before 
Christ (Hales 5400, Jackson 5426), and the short system 
of the Hebrew text, which brings it down fourteen hun- 
dred years later (Usher 4004 b. c, Petavius 3983 b. c). 
There is no agreement till we come down to the age of 
Solomon (1000 b. c). 

Fortunately religion and the authority of the Bible 
do not depend on chronology, any more than on astron- 
omy or geology or any other science. 

II. ABRAHAM'S VISIT TO EGYPT (Gen. 12:10-20). 

This visit was brief and occasioned by a famine. The 
friendly reception of Abraham, a Semitic nomade, and 
the use of camels (ver. 16), which do not appear on the 
early monuments of Egypt, suggest that the visit took 
place under the reign of one of the Hyksos or Semitic 
Shepherd kings (fourteenth, to seventeenth dynasty), but 

* Brugsch, in the Preface to his Geschichte ^g. unter den Pharaojten, 
and R. Stuart Poole, in the Art. Egypt in the 7th vol. of the EncycL Brit, 
9th ed. Canon Rawlinson {The Origin of Natioits, Lond. 1878, pp. 17-31) 
puts the establishment of a settled Egyptian monarchy and civilization 
between B. c. 2450 and B. c. 2250. This would make it quite compatible 
with the Septuagint chronology, which dates the Deluge anterior to b. c. 
3000. 



EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE, or 

some put it earlier, in the beginning of the twelfth dy- 
nasty. In this record we first meet the name of Pha- 
raoh, which is used in the Scriptures and on the monu- 
ments as a generic name for king, as we use '^Czar" for 
the emperor of Russia, and the Sublime Porte" for the 
government of the Sultan.* 

The brief description of the visit of Abraham agrees 
well with all that is known of the age of the Pharaohs in 
that remote period. The objection of Von Bohlen that 
no horses are mentioned among the presents of Pharaoh 
to Abraham (ver. 12, 16), is turned into an argument for 
the historicity of the account by the fact that no horse 
appears on monuments prior to the period of the Hyksos, 
while at a later period the Bible often mentions Egyptian 
horses (Gen. 47 : 17 ; Exod. 9:3; Deut. 17:16; i Kings 
10:28). The fear of Abraham lest he be deprived of 
Sarah by Pharaoh and be slain for her sake, derives con- 
firmation from several documents which show that the 
despots of Egypt were capable of such conduct even in 
the time of their highest civilization. According to the 
story of " The Two Brothers " — the earliest Egyptian fic- 
tion extant from the age of Rameses ILj found in the 
Papyrus d'Orbiney in the British Museum — the Pha- 
raoh of the time sent two armies to capture a beautiful 
woman and to murder her husband. In another ancient 

* The word Pharaoh, Pi-rao, was formerly derived from the Egyptian 
article Pi or Ph, and the Coptic Ouro, i. e,, king (Jablonski) ; or from Pi 
and Ra, the Sun-god, whom the king of Egypt represented (Rosselini, 
Lepsius, etc.); but according to the latest view it means *'the Great 
House^" and is equivalent to the Turkish designation, "the Sublime 
Porte" (De Rouge, Brugsch, Ebers). See Ebers, pp. 263-265; Brugsch, 
p. 582. 



92 



BIBLE LANDS. 



papyrus of the twelfth dynasty, preserved in Berlin, it is 
stated that the wife and children of a foreigner were con- 
fiscated by the king as a matter of course. The favora- 
ble reception of Abraham is illustrated by the picture in 
one of the tombs of Beni Hassan, which represents the 
arrival and distinguished reception of a Semitic nomad 
chief with his family and dependants seeking the protec- 
tion of the governor of the province under Usertesen IL 

III. JOSEPH IN EGYPT. Gen. 37—50. 

The whole inimitable story of Joseph, as related in 
the last chapters of Genesis, his sale as a slave, his temp- 
tation by the unfaithful wife of Potiphar, his imprison- 
ment on a false charge, the dreams of the butler and ba- 
ker, the two dreams of Pharaoh and their interpretation, 
the subsequent elevation of the patriarch and his family, 
are shown by Ebers to be thoroughly Egyptian. It 
might have been written by Joseph himself, and incor- 
porated with many other documents by the author or 
compiler of Genesis. 

Many inscriptions speak of weighty dreams of the 
Pharaohs, which were traced to the inspiration of the 
gods. The occupations of butler and baker are pictured 
on monuments. Seven was a sacred number with the 
Egyptians, as well as'the Hebrews, and often appears in 
the Book of the Dead, the Papyrus Harris, and other 
documents. The cow is the symbol of Athor, the god- 
dess of fertility (Venus Genetrix), who is represented 
with a cow's head. Fertility and sterility, plenty and 
famine, depended then as now upon the rise of the Nile, 



EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 



from which the seven cows of the dream of Pharaoh 
ascend. 

One of the oldest papyri translated by Goodwin, 
relates the story of a foreigner raised to the highest 
rank at the court of Pharaoh. Brugsch (p. 246) discov- 
ered an inscription in the tombs of Baba at El-Kab from 
the age of Joseph, and finds an unmistakable allusion to 
the seven years of famine in these words; I gathered 
grain, a friend of the god of harvest. I was watchful at 
the seed-time. And when a famine arose through many 
years, I distributed the grain through the town in every 
famine." Brugsch thinks that there cannot be the least 
doubt that the "many years" refer to the historical fact 
of the seven years' famine at the time of Joseph, the 
only one of such a long duration recorded in history.* 

These and similar coincidences are independent of 
the age to which we assign Joseph. 

IV. THE EXODUS OF THE ISRAELITES. 

We need not be surprised that the monuments of 
Egypt are silent concerning the miracles of Moses and 
the national calamity and humiliation which overtook 
the king and his army in pursuit of a despised race. 
They mention the victories, but rarely any defeat of the 
Egyptians.! The Hebrews, however, are mentioned in 

* Ebers, in his article Egypten in Riehm's Handwb^'terbuch des Bib- 
lischen Alterthums (1876), p. 330, seq., is not so positive about this refer- 
ence, but deems it very probable. 

t "// n^st pas d penser,''' says De Rouge (as quoted by Vigouroux, IL, 
p. 297), qzie les Egyptiens aient ja7?iais consigne ni le souvenir des plaies, 
ni celui de la catastrophe terrible de la Mer Rouge ; car leurs monuments ne 
consacrent que bie^i rarement le souvetiir de leurs defaites.'''' 



94 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Egyptian papyri under the name of *'Aperiu/' or are 
included under the name of foreigners " or 'lepers." 
There remain also pictures and inscriptions which repre- 
sent Jews as making and piling bricks under the threat- 
ening lash of Egyptian taskmasters, in confirmation of 
Exod. 1 : 14. Dr. Ebers relates that he saw in Goshen, 
at Mashuta, near a monument of granite bearing the 
name of Rameses II., bricks made by Hebrews, some 
with straw, and some without (Exod. 5 : 7.).* 

Josephus, the church fathers and older divines, as- 
sumed that the Hyksos or Shepherd kings, who, accord- 
ing to Manetho, ruled 511 years over Egypt,! were the 
Israelites, and that their expulsion by the first sovereign 
of the eighteenth dynasty was the Egyptian version of 
the Exodus. But this view is now mostly given up as 
untenable. For the vain-glorious Egyptians would never 
have admitted, without necessity, their dependence upon 
a despised race of foreigners. The Bible knows nothing 
of a yewish dynasty of rulers over Egypt ; even Joseph 
was only the chief servant of Pharaoh, and his descend- 
ants were held in bondage. The Hyksos and the Israel- 
ites, though of the same Semitic race, must be distin- 
guished, and the Exodus be put after the expulsion of 
the former. Zoan (Tanis, the Arabic San), the capital 
of the Shepherd kings, in the northeastern section of 
Egypt, was built seven years after Hebron (Num. 13 :22), 

* Durch Gosen zu77i Sinai, p. 75, seq., 520, seq. Some of these bricks 
are in the Berlin Museum. 

t But the estimates of the length of the Shepherd domination vary 
from 260 to 953 years. See Rawlinson, The Origin of Nations^ pp. 27 
and 31. 



EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 



that is, before the time of Abraham. Manetho carica- 
tures the Exodus of the Israelites as an expulsion of 
lepers and rebels, and distinguishes it from the expulsion 
of the Hyksos. 

Who then was the new king of Egypt who " knew not 
Joseph " (Exod. i : 8), who inflicted heavy burdens upon 
the Israelites, and commanded them to build ''for Pha- 
raoh treasure-cities, Pithom and Raamses" (Exod. i : 1 1) ? 
And who was the Pharaoh who perished with his army 
in the Red Sea (ch. 14) In other words, who was the 
Pharaoh of the oppression under whom Moses was born 
and educated ; and who was the Pharaoh of the Exodus 
under whom Moses, being then eighty years old, received 
his divine commission and delivered his people from 
bondage "i On this question the Egyptologists are divi- 
ded between two opinions, some putting the events un- 
der consideration in the eighteenth, others in the nine- 
teenth dynasty. 

I. Amosis, or Aahmes I., the first sovereign of the 
eighteenth dynasty (b. c. 1706, or, according to others, 
1525), is the Pharaoh of the oppression; Thothmes or 
Tutmes II., about a century later, is the Pharaoh of the 
Exodus. This is the view advocated by Canon Cook^ 
and formerly by Reginald Stuart Poole. f 

Amosis captured Zoan, expelled the Hyksos, and 
united the country under one crown of Upper and Lower 
Egypt. He would therefore be likely to oppress and 

^ In the first excursus to the ''Speaker's Commentary" on Exodus, 
p. 443, seq. 

i In Article Egypt in the 8th edition of the "Encycl. Brit," Vol. VII. ; 
but in the 9th edition, Vol. VII. (1877), p. 740, Poole gives up this view. 



96 



BIBLE LANDS. 



enslave the Israelites who lived in that most fertile dis- 
trict. But why did he not drive them out together with 
the Hyksos, who were of the same race and ruled in the 
same district ? 

The reign of Thothmes II. was short and inglorious, 
and his death was followed by a general revolt of the 
confederated nations which had been conquered by his 
father (Thothmes I.). He was married to his more ener- 
getic sister Hatasou, who succeeded him as Queen Reg- 
nant. No attempt was made to recover the lost ascen- 
dancy of Egypt until her younger brother, Thothmes III, 
in the latter part of his long reign of forty-six years 
(1510 to 1556 B. c), completely subdued Syria and Meso- 
potamia to the banks of the Tigris, shortly before the 
date when, according to this hypothesis, the Israelites 
entered the land of promise. 

But would this conqueror, in his march to and from 
Syria, not have attacked the hated Israelites in the wil- 
derness } And would he have allowed them to occupy 
Canaan Is the great prosperity of Egypt and its su- 
premacy in Western Asia, which followed the reign of 
Thothmes III., compatible with the permanent possession 
of Canaan by the Israelites 1 Would such a king as 
Rameses II., had he lived after the Exodus, have left 
Palestine untouched in his irresistible march of conquest 
over the continent of Asia } And would he not have 
erected there, as elsewhere, his monumental pillars of 
victory, some of which Herodotus saw still standing in 
the part of Syria called Palestine" Canon Cook has 
* Book IL, ch. 106. 



EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 97 



done his best to answer some of these questions, but with- 
out success ; and Poole has recently changed his view in, 
favor of the Rameses theory. 

2. Rameses IL, the third sovereign of the nineteenth 
dynasty, is the Pharaoh of the oppression, and his son 
Mernephthah, or Menephthah, is the Pharaoh of the 
Exodus. This is the view adopted by the majority of 
recent Egyptologists — De Rouge, Chabas, Lenormant, 
Vigouroux, among the French ; Bunsen, Lepsius, Ebers, 
Brugsch, among the Germans.* It brings down the Exo- 
dus to about B. c. 13 17. 

Rameses II. is the Sesostris of the Greeks, who blend- 
ed him into one person with his father Sethi I.f He 

* Brugsch (in his last work, p. 549) speaks very confidently: "The 
new Pharaoh, who knew nothing of Joseph, who founded and adorned the 
capital of the district of Tanis, and the city of Pi-tum, the capital of the 
district afterwards called Sethroites, with temples, is no other, can be no 
other than Rameses II., of whose buildings at Zoan the monuments and 

papyrus-rolls speak in perfect harmony He is the Pharaoh of the 

oppression, the father of that unnamed royal daughter who found the 
child Moses on the banks of the river." Vigouroux is equally confident, 
1. c, pp. 204, seq. 

t Wilkinson, in commenting on Herod. II. 102 (in RawLinson's His- 
tory of Herodotus^ II. 144), remarks: "The original Sesostris was the first 
king of the twelfth dynasty, Osirtasen, or Sesortasen I., who was the first 
great Egyptian conqueror; but when Osirei, or Sethi (Sethos), and his son 
Rameses II. surpassed the exploits of their predecessor, the name of Se- 
sostris became confounded with Sethos, and the conquests of that king 
and his still greater son were ascribed to the ori^^nal Sesostris. This ex- 
plains the assertion of Dicsearchus, that Sesostris was the successor of 
Horus, mistaken for the god, but really the last king of the eighteenth 
dynasty. For those two kings did succeed Horus (the reign of Rameses 
I., the father of Sethi, being so short as to be overlooked), and their union 
under one name, Sesostris, is accounted for by Rameses II. having ruled 
conjointly with his father during the early and principal part of his reign. 
Mr. Poole very properly suggests that Manetho's * 6 kol 'VeiiEOGrjc,^ 

Bible LaiKla. 9 



98 



BIBLE LANDS. 



ruled sixty-seven years (b, c, 1388 to 1322*), at first as co- 
, regent with his father, whose name he afterwards erased 
from the monuments. He had many wives and concu- 
bines, and one hundred and nineteen children (fifty-nine 
sons and sixty daughters), whose pictures and names are 
preserved on a temple-wall at Abydos. He represents 
the highest power and glory of ancient Egypt. He was 
the great conqueror and builder who spread himself all 
over his empire, and covered it with monuments of self- 
glorification. f He was among the Pharaohs what Louis 
XIV. and Napoleon were among the rulers of France. 
He is the central figure that meets us in the colossal 
statues and innumerable cartouches and bas-reliefs 
among the ruins of Tanis, Memphis, Abydos, Thebes, 
Luxor, Karnak, Aboo Simbel, in the Syenite torso of the 
British Museum, and in the obelisk of the Place de la 
Concorde in Paris. There is scarcely a ruin in Egypt 
and Nubia that does not record the memory of his con- 
quests and his insatiable passion for building. His 
name,'* says Dr. Ebers, may be read to-day on a hun- 
dred monuments in Goshen." He is called on the mon- 

should be *2 . . «ai T. This is required also by the length of their reigns 
(that of the second Rameses being from sixty-three to sixty-six years), and 
by the age of Rameses ; and the sculptures at Karnak show that he accom- 
panied his father in his early campaigns. It seems too that in the first 
Sesostris two kings, Osirtasen I. and III., were comprehended; as several 
were under the name of Moeris." 

* The Egyptologists differ. Lepsius dates his reign from B. c. 1388, 
Brugsch from 1407, Mariette from 1405, Bunsen from 1352, Poole from 
1283. 

t Maspero {Hist. Ancienne, p. 225) calls him *'le roi constructeur par 
excellence," Zincke {Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedive^ p. 125), " the 
most magnificent and prolific architect the world has ever seen." 



EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 



99 



uments "the bull powerful against Ethiopia, the griffin 
furious against the negroes." He fought a single-handed 
fight against overwhelming odds in the presence of both 
armies. ''He traversed," says Herodotus (H. ip2 and 
103), "the whole continent of Asia, and conquered every 
people which fell in his way." He also, according to the 
same authority, proceeded i-n a fleet of ships of war from 
the Arabian gulf to the mouths of the Indus. Crossing 
to Europe, he subdued Scythia and Thrace, erecting 
everywhere pillars of victory with his own name. We 
cannot think without horror of the immense sacrifice of 
human life which these conquests and buildings required. 
Almost every stone was reared with blood. And all this 
to gratify the pride and vanity of an absolute despot ! 
The pride of Rameses towered to the height of the gods. 
His statues have superhuman proportions, his face more 
than Egyptian beauty. All his w^orks are self-glorifica- 
tions. His courtiers and wives are represented as per- 
forming acts of adoration before him. 

Among his many structures mentioned on the monu- 
ments and in papyri, are fortifications along the canal 
from Goshen to the Red Sea, and especially at Pi-Tum 
and Pi-Rameses, or Pi-Ramessu. These must be the 
same with "the treasure cities Pithomi and Raamses," 
which the Israelites built or enlarged for Pharaoh, ac- 
cording to Exod. I :ii. For " treasure cities" (inische- 
notJi) are magazines or depots of ammunition and provis- 
ion. The city of Rameses, Pi-Rameses, named for him, 
was perhaps only a new name for the old city of Tanis — the 
biblical and hieroglyphic Zoan (the modern Arabic San), on 



lOO 



BIBLE LANDS. 



a branch of the Nile, where Moses was probably born and 
where he certainly performed his miracles (compare Psa. 
78 : 12, 43).* It was the capital of a rich district and a 
frequent residence of King Rameses, where he held a 
magnificent court, reviewed his army, and from which he 
started on his victorious expeditions against the nations 
of Western Asia. Recent excavations at San or Zoan 
have brought to light many monumental inscriptions, 
ruins of brick houses, and an immense temple with 
twelve obelisks, also a colossal statue of Rameses II., 
seated between two gods, which has been transferred to 
the museum at Boulak. 

What is more natural than that such a powerful des- 
pot and passionate builder should employ the Hebrews 
on the borders of his empire in hard work to make them 
harmless during his absence ? It is expressly stated, 
Exod. I : 10, that Pharaoh was afraid the Hebrews might 
join his enemies and fight against him. But we have 
more direct proof. The Hebrews are mentioned under 
the Egyptian name Aperm (or Aptmu) in several official 
reports (on the Leyden papyri), two of which are cer- 
tainly from the reign of Rameses II. They are described 
there as persons who, together with the soldiers, were 
employed in drawing stones for the fortified enclosure of 

* Brugsch identifies Hameses with Tanis. See his Address before 
the Internationa-l Congress of Orientalists in London, L'exode et les monu- 
ments egyptiens (Leipzig, 1875), PP* 22-24. Poole adopts this view in Art. 
Egypt in EncycL Brit., vol. VII. (9th ed.). Ebers [Dttrch Goseit zum 
Sinai^ 1872, pp. 5oo, seq.) distinguishes two cities of that name, Rame- 
ses-Tunis, and Rameses-Machuta, the latter being situated farther south 
on the old canal of the Pharaohs. 



EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE, loi 

Pi-Rameses, and to whom their rations of corn were de- 
livered.* Brugsch (p. 563) mentions also as a remarka- 
ble fact that one hundred years after his death, under the 
reign of his nephew Rameses III., the name y-e7t-Mosckey 
i. e,, " the island of Moshe," or " the bank of Moshe," 
occurs among the towns of Middle Egypt. And among 
the daughters of Rameses 11. is one called Meri, probably 
the same with Princess MerriSy who, according to Jewish 
tradition and Eusebius, saved Moses. f 

Menephthah I.J was the thirteenth son of Rameses 
and began to rule probably b. c. 1325 or 1322. He marks 
a period of decline, in which the conquests of his two 
great predecessors were gradually and ingloriously lost. 
Few monuments were erected in his reign, and even his 
father s tomb was left unfinished. This is just what we 
would expect after the catastrophe in the Red Sea. He 
was buried in his tomb at Biban-el-Moluk, but this may 
have been a mock burial. § It is also mentioned that 
Menephthah lost a son who is named on a monument of 
Taois, and Brugsch connects this fact with the death of 
the first-born ; but on this not much stress can be laid. 

* See a translation of these reports in Ebers, ]. c, p. 502. 

t She is also called Thermutis. Ebers thinks that she was a daugh- 
ter of Sethi 1. and the sister and wife of Rameses II. Durch Gosen, etc., 
pp. 83 and 525. 

I Ebers spells the name Mernephtah. The copyists of Manetho differ ; 
the usual form is Menephthes, or Menephthah. See Ebers, Dttrch Gosen, 
etc., p. 522. 

§ The Mosaic narrative does not expressly say that Pharaoh himself 
perished in the sea, but this is almost necessarily implied in the words 
''not one of them remained " (Ex. 14 : 28), and is asserted in Psa. 106: it. 
The Egyptian monuments always represent the king at the head of his 
army. 

9* 



102 BIBLE LANDS. 

Of more importance is another fact. Herodotus tells us 
(II. c. Ill), that the son and successor of Sesostris whom 
he calls Pheron (probably the famous Pharaoh of the 
Hebrew record at the time of the Exodus) undertook no 
warlike expeditions, and was smitten with blindness for 
ten years because "he impiously hurled his spear into 
the overflowing waves of the river which a sudden wind 
caused to rise to an extraordinary height.'' This reads 
like a confused reminiscence of the disaster in the Red 
Sea. I am surprised that this striking confirmation from 
the Greek historian seems to have escaped the attention 
of the writers whom I have consulted. 

The only serious difficulty in this view is the chron- 
ological. For if Menephthah's reign began b. c. 1325, 
we have less than 315 years between the Exodus and the 
building of Solomon's temple (b. c. igig). From these 
must be deducted 40 years for the sojourn in the wilder- 
ness, 25 years for the period of Joshua, 40 for the reign 
of Saul and 40 for that of David, which leaves us not 
more than about 170 years (instead of 330) for the period 
of the Judges. But the uncertainties of Egyptian and 
Hebrew chronologies deprive the objection of decisive 
weight. 

Whatever view we take of the Pharaohs of the age of 
Moses, it must be admitted that the latest Egyptological 
discoveries and researches are not in conflict, but can be 
harmonized with the Mosaic accounts, and even confirm 
and illustrate them in all their allusions to the country 
and people of ancient Egypt. This confirmation is all 
the more convincing because it is incidental and unde- 



EGYPTOLOGY AND THE BIBLE, 103 

signed. The Bible has nothing to fear from Egyptology. 
And as to the history of the Pharaohs and the history of 
Israel there can be no comparison. The one is a barren 
desert, with some lofty peaks and brackish fountains, the 
other a garden full of unfading flowers and ripe fruit for 
the enjoyment and use of all nations and ages. 



104 



BIBLE LANDS, 



CHAPER XI. 

ANCIENT AND MODERN EGYPT COMPARED, 

Egypt the Old House of Bondage under New Mas- 
ters—The Pharaohs and the People— Character of 
Egyptian Art compared with that of Ancient 
Greece— Mohammed Ali and Isma il Pasha- 
Present Condition of the People — Reform and 
.Ruin— Annexation to England— The Cross and the 
Crescent. 

The Bible calls Egypt " the house of bondage.'* This 
is as true now as it was in the time of Moses. Its ancient 
ruins and the present condition of the people alike con- 
firm it. Kingcraft and priestcraft in possession of all 
intelligence and power used the people as beasts of bur- 
den and mechanical tools in the times of the Pharaohs, 
and so use them under the present Khedive. Modern 
Egypt is simply the old house of bondage under new 
masters.'' 

Temples and tombs meet the traveller day after day 
on the banks of the Nile. It is a valley of sepulchres 
and mummies, of animal gods and animal men. The 
traveller is kept vacillating between admiration for the 
grandeur of the monuments, and contempt for the absurd- 
ity of the idolatry which inspired their erection. It 
seems inconceivable that a nation possessed of such skill 
in all the arts of design could be devoted to the worship 
of beasts and reptiles. St. Paul had them in view when 



ANCIENT AND MODERN EGYPT, 105 



he speaks of wise fools who changed the glory of the 
incorruptible God into an image of corruptible man and 
birds and fourfooted beasts and creeping things. In the 
days of Herodotus it was easier to find a god on the Nile 
than a man ; and in honor of these gods, half men, half 
beasts, or all beasts, the Egyptians constructed their 
greatest works of art. They built as magnificent tombs 
and sarcophagi for their sacred bulls at Sakkara as for 
their kings of Thebes. If the worshippers of beetles and 
cats, of bulls and crocodiles could do so much, how much 
more should the worshippers of the true God be able and 
willing to do "i But the noblest monuments of the Chris- 
tian faith are constructed of better material than granite 
and marble. A single church, or university, or orphan- 
house, does more good to the bodies and souls of men 
than all the temples of Egypt. These were only intended 
for kings and priests, and were closed by their outer 
walls against the multitude,. 

The stupendous proportions and the hoary antiquity of 
the temples, pyramids, and rock-tombs, constitute their 
chief attraction. The ruins of Gheezeh, Karnak, Luxor, 
Thebes, Denderah, Edfou, and Aboo Simbel,-defy our 
notions of strength and sublimity, and excite our amaze- 
ment at the mechanical skill which could remove from 
the quarries of Syene, transport and pile up such enor- 
mous masses of stone. Only absolute command over 
unlimited time and" unlimited labor could do it.' The 
explanation is a sad comment on despotic power. The 
Pharaohs forced thousands and millions of human beings, 
subjects and captives of war, like so many cam. els and 



io6 



BIBLE LANDS. 



donkeys, into the service of their vanity and folly, without 
any reward for their toil and labor. 

Moreover, grand and imposing as is the design, and 
admirable as is the execution, there is after all no real 
beauty and grace in the Egyptian works of architecture, 
sculpture, and painting, if we compare them with those of 
Greece. The gods are disfigured by animal heads and ^ 
attributes, the men look like machines, stiff, stolid, 
monotonous. The Egyptian mind was kept in bondage 
by the dark powers of nature ; the Greek mind was 
emancipated and breathed the air of freedom and man- 
hood. Phidias and Socrates have done more for civiliza- 
tion than all the Pharaohs and Ptolemies. 

In the course of time Egypt, from the most power- 
ful of empires, became " the basest of kingdoms." And 
from this condition it has not yet risen. It is true, a new 
era of reform began with Mohammed Ali (died 1849), 
the Napoleon of Egypt. His grandson, Isma il Pasha, 
the present Khedive or Viceroy (since 1863), is following 
his steps, and seems to have taken the imperial charla- 
tan, Napoleon III., "the nephew of the uncle,'' for his 
model. He is undoubtedly an intelligent, enterprising, 
and energetic ruler, and has all the varnish of modern 
French civilization ; but he builds from the top down- 
ward, instead of building from the foundation upward — 
and the natural result is bankruptcy. He constructs, by 
forced labor, railroads and canals, palace after palace for 
himself and his wives and concubines, hotels, theatres, 
and sugar factories ; he owns large sugar and cotton 
plantations, and all the steamers on the Nile ; and he 



ANCIENT AND MODERN EGYPT, 107 



grinds his people to the very dust by taxation. Every 
acre of land and every fruit-tree in Egypt is heavily 
taxed. His officials are corrupt and notoriously open to 
bribes ; he had to send for an Englishman to sift the bot- 
tom facts of his embarrassment and to straighten his 
finances. There is no administration of real justice ex- 
cept in the three international courts recently established, 
to which England, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, and 
the United States send representatives. 

A more degraded, abject, and beggarly people than 
the modern Egyptians it would be difficult to find within 
the limits of the civilized world. '^Backsheesh" is the 
first word they learn, and the last they forget. You hear 
it everywhere from morning till night, from old and young, 
as if it were ''the chief end of man." It opens the key 
to everything worth seeing in the East except the harems 
and the cave of Machpelah at Hebron. It indicates the 
all-prevailing poverty and misery. The villages of Egypt 
look like shapeless heaps of ruins. The houses in the 
country, and even in some quarters of Alexandria and 
Cairo, are miserable mud-huts, without roofs, without 
beds, without furniture, and not much better than Indian 
wigwams. Men, women, and children are huddled togeth- 
er on the bare fioor. They have but one garment, or a 
few rags. They live in the same enclosure and on terms 
of ultra-democratic equality with their donkeys, buffaloes, 
cows, goats, sheep, and chickens ; only the doves have a 
separate household in the pure air above, and send down 
their contributions to the dirt of the family. The women 
work in the field and carry all the water in heavy jars, but 



io8 



BIBLE LANDS. 



have little else to do— no stockings to darn, no beds to 
make, no linen to mend, no plates and cups to clean ; 
their highest idea of happiness is to sit on the river bank 
gossiping and catching fleas. The children are naked, 
and seldom if ever washed; even the flies which encamp 
around their eyes are left undisturbed. Ophthalmia and 
blindness prevail to a fearful extent. Reading and wri- 
ting are unknown among the common people ; they are 
so ignorant that they rarely know even their own age. 
Birth, marriage, and death are the only events in their 
monotonous animal existence. 

And yet these Egyptians are not without noble qual- 
ities. They are a submissive, gentle, harmless, and by 
no means unintelligent race. They have bright dark 
eyes, white teeth, fine figures, and any amount of physi- 
cal endurance. Many of the men are very handsome 
and quick-witted ; the women are as straight as the 
palm-trees, and carry their burdens skilfully and grace- 
fully on their heads or shoulders. Even the Nubians, 
though darker than our negroes, and far beneath them 
in knowledge, surpass them in physical appearance and 
seeming capacity for higher attainments. Like other 
Mohammedans, the Egyptians are temperate in meat and 
drink, and can live on bread, lentils, beans, dates, sour 
milk, and water. Mohammedanism is a great total absti- 
nence society. Our Arab dragoman from Luxor and the 
captain on the Nile indignantly refused wine or beer 
which some less scrupulous Christian passengers injudi- 
ciously offered them. I often thought how difficult it 
must be for these simple-minded and contented Orientals 



ANCIENT AND MODERN EGPYT. 



109 



to be convinced of the superiority of the Christian reli- 
gion and civilization, if judged by the luxurious extrava- 
gance and intemperance of many English and American 
travellers. 

Is there any hope for such a people ? Undoubtedly 
there is, in God's own good time and way. Great politi- 
cal changes must precede. It is not impossible that 
Egypt, the highway to British India, will before long be 
annexed to England. The most intelligent men in Egypt, 
not interested in the present reign of the Khedive, desire 
it ; knowing that England has a strong and honest gov- 
ernment, would throw a vast amount of capital into the 
country, and promote liberty, education, and industry 
among the people. An English protectorate over Egypt 
would be a part of the solution of the Eastern question. 
It would prepare the way for a still higher solution, the 
triumph of the Cross over the Crescent. "The Egyp- 
tians shall cry unto the Lord because of the oppressors, 
and he shall send them a Saviour, and a great one, and 
he shall deliver them. And the Lord shall be known to 
Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord." (Isa. 
19: 20, 21.) 



Bible Lands. 



10 



1 10 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE MOHAMMEDAN RELIGION. 

General Character-— The Koran and the Bible Com- 
pared — The Fundamental Dogma— Monotheism 
— Fatalism — Islam— Paradise— Hell — Other Arti- 
cles of Belief —Mohammedan Ethics— Moham- 
medan Worship — Friday — Hours of Prayer — 
Dancing and Howling Dervishes— Islam a Reli- 
gion of Men, not of Women — Degradation of 
Woman — Mohammed and his Successors. 

The Mohammedan religion is a compound of Jewish 
monotheism, heathen sensuality, and apocryphal pseudo- 
Christianity, pervaded by devotion to Mohammed, the 
poet and prophet of Arabia. It may be called a bastard 
Judaism, as the Arabs are Ishmaelites, or children of the 
bastard son of Abraham. 

The Koran is the Bible of the Moslems, v^ho believe 
it to be literally inspired, infallible, and a universal guide 
in religion, morals, grammar, philosophy, and govern- 
ment. It is too sacred to be translated or printed, but 
has often been translated by Christians from Arabic into 
modern languages. 

The Koran is unquestionably one of the great books 
of the world. It has left its impress upon ages. It feeds 
the devotions and regulates the lives of more than a hun- 
dred millions of human beings. It has many passages 
of poetic beauty, religious fervor, and wise counsel, but 
mixed with absurdities, bombast, unmeaning images, and 



THE MOHAMMEDAN RELIGION, 



1 1 1 



low sensuality. It abounds in repetitions and contradic- 
tions which are not removed by the convenient theory of 
abrogation. It alternately attracts and repels, and is a 
most wearisome book to read. Gibbon says, "The Koran 
is a glorious testimony to the unity of God but he calls 
it also very properly an " endless, incoherent rhapsody of 
fable and precept and declamations, which seldom excites 
a sentiment or idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, 
and is sometimes lost in the clouds." Reiske denounces 
it as the most absurd book, and a scourge to a reader of 
sound common sense. Goethe characterizes the style as 
severe, great, terrible, and at times truly sublime. Car- 
lyle calls the book " the confused ferment of a great, rude 
human soul, fervent, earnest, sincere in all senses." But 
this is too much praise. 

Of all books, not excluding theVedas, the Koran is 
the most powerful rival of the Bible, but falls infinitely 
below it in contents and form. Both are thoroughly ori- 
ental in style and imagery, and born under similar condi- 
tions of soil, climate, and habits of life. Both contain the 
moral and religious code of the nations which own them ; 
the Koran, like the Old Testament, is also a civil code, 
for in Mohammedan countries the civil and ecclesiastical 
governments are one. Both have the freshness of occa- 
sional composition growing out of a definite historical 
situation and specific wants. But the Bible is the genu- 
ine revelation of the only true God in Christ ; the Koran 
is a mock revelation, without Christ and without atone- 
ment. The Bible is historical, and embodies the noblest 
aspirations of the human race in all ages to the final con- 



112 



BIBLE LANDS, 



summation ; the Koran begins and stops with Moham- 
med. The Bible combines endless variety with unity, 
universal applicability with local adaptation ; the Koran 
is uniform and monotonous, confined to one country, one 
state of society, and one class of minds. The Bible is 
the book of the world, and is constantly travelling to the 
ends of the earth, carrying spiritual food to all classes of 
the people ; the Koran stays at home, and is insipid to 
all who have once fully tasted the true Word of the liv- 
ing God. Even the poetry of the Koran never rises to 
the grandeur and sublimity of Job or Isaiah, the lyric 
beauty of the Psalms, the sweetness and loveliness of the 
Song of Solomon, the sententious wisdom of the Prov- 
erbs and Ecclesiastes. 

A few instances must suffice. 

The first Sura, called the Sura of Praise and Pray- 
er," which is recited by the Mussulmans in each of the 
five daily devotions, fills for them the place of the Lord's 
Prayer, and contains the same number of petitions. We 
give it in a literal translation : 

" I. In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. 

2. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds ! 

3. The Compassionate, the Merciful, 

4. King on the day of reckoning ! 

5. Thee only do we worship, and to thee do we cry for help. 

6. Guide thou us on the straight path, 

7. The path of those to whom thou hast been gracious — 
With whom thou art not angry, 

And who go not astray. Amen." 

As this Sura invites a comparison with the Lord's 
Prayer infinitely to the advantage of the latter, so do the 



THE MOHAMMEDAN RELIGION, 1 1 3 



Koran's descriptions of paradise when contrasted with 
John's vision of the heavenly Jerusalem : 

" Joyous on that day shall be the inmates of Paradise in their em- 
ploy ; 

In shades, on bridal couches reclining, they and their spouses. 
Therein shall they have fruits, and whatever they require. 
^ Peace !' shall be the word on the part of a merciful Lord, 

* But be ye separated this day, O ye sinners !' 

* * * * * 
The sincere servants of God, 

A stated banquet shall they have 
Of fruits, and honored shall they be 
In the gardens of delight, 
Upon couches face to face. 

A cup shall be borne round among them from a fountain, 
Limpid, delicious to those who drink ; 

It shall not oppress the sense, nor shall they therewith be 
drunken, 

And with them are the large-eyed ones with modest refraining 
glance, fair like the sheltered egg." 

The fundamental dogma of Islam is contained in the 
ever-repeated phrase, "There is no deity but Allah, and 
Mohammed is his apostle." (La ilaha ilV allah, wa 
Muhammeda rrasuld llah.) The first clause is true, and 
borrowed from the Old Testament (Deut. 6:4); the sec- 
ond clause is an error which corrupts the truth* The 
source of its power and the secret of its success lie in 
the intense and fanatical monotheism of Islam. Its his- 
torical mission consists in the destruction of heathen 
idolatry. But this monotheism, like the Jewish and the 
Unitarian monotheism, is abstract and monotonous. It 
excludes the fulness of life and the inner-trinitarian rela 
tions as well as outer-trinitarian manifestations of the 

10* 



114 



BIBLE LANDS, 



Deity. It is hostile to the divinity of Christ and of the 
Holy Spirit. It absurdly reasons from the pseudo-Chris- 
tian Mariolatry of the Eastern churches, that God has no 
wife, and therefore he can have no Son ! The Mohamme- 
dan God is not a loving father of trustful children, but a 
despotic sovereign of trembling subjects and slaves. He 
has from eternity foreordained all things, evil as well as 
good. The Mohammedan doctrine of predestination is 
not Calvinistic, but fatalistic. It breeds a fierce fanati- 
cism in the propagation of religion, and a stolid submis- 
sion to unalterable fate. Islam — that is, unconditional 
resignation to the unchangeable will of Allah — is the chief 
virtue. He who dies fighting for his faith is sure to be 
saved. 

The Mohammedan paradise is in the seventh heaven, 
and is the abode of perpetual youth and sensual delight 
for the faithful. Hell (lahennem — Gehenna) is beneath 
the lowest earth and seas of darkness, and is a place of 
everlasting punishment for all infidels, with seven stages 
for as many classes, viz., wicked Mohammedans, Chris- 
tians, Jews, Sabians, Magians, idolaters, hypocrites. The 
bridge over hell is finer than a hair and sharper than the 
edge of a sword; the pious pass over it in a moment, the 
wicked fall from it into the abyss. The Moslems be- 
lieve also in pure angels, good and evil genii, and devils 
whose chief is Iblees or Satan. They believe in prophets 
and apostles, among whom Adam, Noah, Abraham, Mo- 
ses, Jesus, and Mohammed, are the greatest. Jesus ex- 
cels all, except Mohammed, of whom he himself prophe- 
sied, when he promised that "other Paraclete" (Com- 



THE MOHAMMEDAN RELIGION, 



IIS 



forter), who should lead his disciples into the whole truth. 
Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, and free from sin, 
but a mere man. He will return again, and with Mo- 
hammed judge the whole world. 

The principal duties enjoined by the Koran are prayer, 
almsgiving, fasting (during the month of Ramadan), and 
pilgrimage to Mecca and Mount Arafat at least once in 
a man's life, if possible. The less important duties and 
rites are abstinence from unclean animal food, from wine 
and all intoxicating liquor, from gambling and usury; 
also veracity (except in a few cases), probity, charity, 
cleanliness, decent attire, circumcision. The law allows 
a man to have four wives (though most have only one or 
two), and as many concubine slaves as he pleases. Pashas, 
Khalifs, and Sultans are not restricted in polygamy. Di- 
vorce is made easy. Sons inherit equal shares, but the 
share of a daughter is only half that of a son. 

The Mohammedan worship consists simply of prayers, 
with preparatory ablutions, and occasional preaching 
from the Koran. It is iconoclastic and puritanic. It 
resembles the Jewish and the Protestant worship, rather 
than the Roman or Greek Catholic. There is an entire 
absence of symbolical representations, which might dis- 
tract the mind from the one and only object of worship. 
The prohibition in the second commandment is literally 
carried out. The Koran has no idea of an atonement, 
and hence no room for sacrifice, except the commemora- 
tion of Ishmael's (Isaac's) sacrifice by Abraham. Allah 
is indeed " all merciful," and forgives sins, but arbitrarily, 
without satisfaction of his justice. In this respect, as 



ii6 



BIBLE LANDS. 



also in the doctrine of the abstract unity of the godhead, 
Islam resembles Socinianism and Unitarianism. It may 
be called the great Unitarian heresy of the East. " In 
the name of God, the Compassionate, the MercifuV* is 
the phrase used at the beginning of every chapter of the 
Koran (except one), and of every other book, as also be- 
fore every lawful and important act. The two words are 
from the same root, and have nearly the same meaning, 
with the distinction, according to the Ulama (the profes- 
sors of religion and law), that compassionate " means 
" merciful in great things," the other " merciful in small 
things/' But E. W. Lane (the author of that most in- 
structive and reliable book " The Modern Egyptians," 
and translator of "The Thousand and One Nights") 
says that ''the first expresses an occasional sensation, 
the second a constant quality," 

Friday is observed as Sabbath, because on Friday 
Adam was created and died, and on Friday the world 
will be judged. On that day the Dancing and Howling 
Dervishes perform their unique exercises, of which I 
shall speak afterwards. But the observance of Friday is 
not nearly as strict as the Jewish observance of the 
Sabbath. On the other hand, worship is not confined 
to that day. The mosques, like the Roman-Catholic 
churches, are always open and frequented by worship- 
pers, who perform their devotions either in groups or 
alone. 

The devotions of the pious Moslem are impressive, 
and put many Christians to shame. He says his prayers 
and goes through his bowings and prostrations regularly . 



THE MOHAMMEDAN RELIGION, 1 1 7 



and punctually five times a day, in the mosque, or at 
home, or on board a ship, or in the street, or wherever 
he may be, regardless of his surroundings, being alone 
with his God in the midst of the crowd, his face turned 
toward Mecca, his® hands raised to heaven, then laid on 
the lap, his knees bent, his forehead touching the ground. 
His usual prayer is the first Sura of the Koran, which 
serves him the same purpose as the Lord's Prayer does 
the Christian. Sometimes a few other verses are added, 
and the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah which form 
the Mohammedan rosary. There are five stated hours 
of prayer : between daybreak and sunrise, a little after 
noonday, in the afternoon, four minutes after sunset, and 
at nightfall. The Prophet fixed the seasons of prayer in 
this way to avoid the appearance of sun and star-wor- 
ship, which he had to contend with in Arabia. The 
mueddin or muezzin (crier) announces the time of prayer 
from the minaret of each mosque, by chanting the 
Adan," or call to prayer, in these or similar words : 
God is most great. I testify that there is no deity but 
God. I testify that Mohammed is God's apostle. Come 
to prayer ! Come to security ! Prayer is better than 
sleeping. God is most great. There is no deity but 
God.'^ 

Among the most curious features of Mohammedan 
worship are the exercises of the Dancing and Howling 
Dervishes, which I witnessed both at Cairo and at Con- - 
stantinople (in Pera and Scutari) on Friday and Tuesday 
afternoon. The dervishes are the Moslem monks. They 
perform their astounding feats of asceticism once a week 



ii8 



BIBLE LANDS. 



in their mosques, and strangers are admitted on the pay- 
ment of backsheesh. They carry certain forms of ascet- 
icism as far as the old Christian Anchorets or the Fakirs 
of India. 

The Dancing Dervishes, after the preliminary exer- 
cises of prayer and prostration, whirl around on their 
toes, ring within ring without touching each other, for 
about an hour until they are utterly exhausted. I saw 
thirteen of them, all dressed in white flowing gowns and 
with high white hats of stiff woollen stuff ; their hands 
were stretched out or raised to heaven, their eyes half 
closed ; their mind was apparently absorbed in the con- 
templation of Allah. The performance consisted of four 
different acts, and I counted forty to fifty turnings in 
one minute. The spectacle is very exciting, and the 
dexterity and elasticity of their bodies are astonishing. 
The faces betrayed fanatical devotion. But to my great 
amazement I saw the next day one of these very dervish- 
es in a state of beastly intoxication reeling to and fro on 
the large bridge of the Golden Horn without observing 
anybody. This was a strange commentary on Moham- 
medan temperance. The higher classes, I understand, 
and it would seem from this exceptional example even 
dervishes, freely indulge in the use of strong brandy and 
champagne. 

The Howling Dervishes swing their heads up and 
down, crying incessantly with all their might, La ilaha 
ilV Allah, and some other phrases, until they are stopped 
from sheer exhaustion. The spectacle in Scutari lasted 
with the preliminary prayers and songs nearly two hours; 



THE MOHAMMEDAN RELIGION, 1 19 



but it did not impress me as much as the one in Cairo a 
few months before, the charm of novelty was gone. In 
Scutari the monks formed a line, in Cairo a ring, holding 
each other by the hand and throwing their long hair 
backward and forward so as to present a unique picture. 

In entering a mosque, we may keep on the hat or 
turban, but must take off the shoes, or cover them with 
socks, or put on slippers, in commemoration of the divine 
command to Moses, Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, 
for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." 
Slippers or sandals of straw are usually provided at the 
entrance of the mosques, and must be paid for. There 
are always half a dozen claimants for backsheesh. 

Women are seldom seen in the mosques. The Koran 
does not command them to pray, and some Mohammedan 
philosophers doubt whether women have souls. Yet 
they are necessary for the bliss of Paradise, where the 
humblest believer is allowed 80,000 slaves and 72 wives 
besides those he had in this life, if he chooses to keep 
them, 

Islam is a religion of men, while Christianity has 
more followers among women. The one keeps woman 
in a state of slavery and ignorance ; the other raises her 
to true dignity and equality with man. In nothing is 
the superiority of Christian civilization over Mohammed- 
anism so manifest as in the position of woman and in the 
home-life. Polygamy reduces woman to a mere slave 
and plaything, and is a fruitful source of domestic and 
social misery. Mohammed was comparatively temperate, 
but grew more sensual and cruel as he advanced in life 



1 20 



BIBLE LANDS. 



and power. He was first married to a rich widow much 
older than himself (Chadijah), who bore him four daugh- 
ters and two sons ; two months after her death he mar- 
ried Sawda, another widow, and was betrothed at the 
same time to a mere girl of six or seven years, Ayesha, 
whose jealous hatred of Fatima (his only surviving daugh- 
ter from Chadijah) became the cause of perpetual dis- 
cords and schisms. He had in all fifteen regular wives 
and many concubines. He despised a throne and a 
diadem, he mended his own clothes, he pegged his own 
shoes, he lived on dates and water, in a poor cottage, 
surrounded by the cottages of his wives and slaves. His 
successors drink champagne, live in luxury, and have 
dozens of palaces and harems filled with eunuchs and 
women who know nothing beyond the vanities of etiquette 
and dress. It is painful to add that the American Mo- 
hammed, Brigham Young, who died in September, 1877, 
had nineteen wives and over fifty children, and left an 
immense fortune. 

Mohammed and the savage sons of the desert, by a 
fanatical faith, extreme simplicity and temperance, and 
fierce bravery, conquered the fairest portions of the 
East, plundering, enslaving, and destroying wherever 
they went, and reducing the lands of the Bible to a dreary 
ruin. His successors at the present day have to live at 
the mercy of Christian Europe. They have shamefully 
wasted their opportunities, and the time of reckoning has 
come. The Mohammedan religion is indeed neither dead 
nor dying ; a visit to its old University in Cairo, with 
ten thousand pupils, and its progress among the savage 



THE MOHAMMEDAN RELIGION, 121 



races in Africa, are sufficient to prove its vitality ; but it 
has ceased to be a terror and insult to Europe ; it must 
retreat to Asia, it is gradually undermined by inevi- 
table changes in its own strongholds, and before long it 
will have to open the door for the messengers of a purer 
Christianity than that which it so easily conquered, not 
by argument and persuasion, but by the brute force of 
the sword, which by the slow but sure Nemesis of history 
is now turned against it 



Biblt; Lauds. 



11 



122 



BIBLE LANDS, 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CHRISTIANITY IN EGYPT 

Early Christianity in Egypt~St. Mark— The Cate- 
chetical School .in Alexandria— Clement and Ori- 
gen — Athanasius the Great — St. Anthony and 
Monasticism— Cyril of Alexandria— The Decay of 
Christianity— The Triumph of Islam— The Cop- 
tic Church — A Coptic Wedding— Protestant Mis- 
sions among the Copts— Drs. Lansing and Hogg 
—The United Presbyterian Mission— English and 
German Churches— The Mission Schools of Miss 
Whately— Statistics. 

Will Egypt ever be Christianized again ? Once 
the gospel dispelled Egyptian darkness, and overthrew 
one of the basest forms of civilized superstition and idol- 
atry, which worshipped beasts and reptiles, and built 
magnificent tombs for sacred bulls and wolves and croc- 
odiles. The land which sheltered Joseph and the patri- 
archal family and the infant Jesus, accepted the message 
of St. Mark ; and Alexandria, its capital, soon rose to be 
one of the patriarchal sees of Christendom. In the sec- 
ond century the same city boasted of a flourishing cate- 
chetical school, in which Clement and Origen expounded 
the Scriptures, silenced the heathen assailants, confound- 
ed the heretics, and introduced Platonic philosophy into 
Christian theology. There Athanasius, the father of or- 
thodoxy, fought his life-long battle against Arianism. and 



CHRISTIANITY IN EGYPT, 



123 



saved the fundamental doctrine of Christianity — the eter- 
nal divinity of Christ. 

In Egypt also arose the system of Christian anchoret- 
ism and monasticism, which reflected in the moral sphere 
the startling contrast between the solemn, barren desert 
and the smiling garden of the Nile. In the tombs and 
caves of the Libyan desert St. Anthony became the pa- 
triarch of hermits, and St. Pachomius the patriarch of 
monks — both childless, and yet " the fathers of an innu- 
merable generation." A mania for the voluntary martyr- 
dom of ascetic life spread with such rapidity in the fourth 
century, that in Egypt the number of anchorites and cen- 
obites in ^he^deserts was supposed to be equal to the 
population of the cities. It was," says Montalembert, 
a kind of emigration of towns to the desert, of civiliza- 
tion to simplicity, of noise to silence, of corruption to 
innocence. The current once begun, floods of men, of 
women and of children, threw themselves into it, and 
flowed thither during a century with irresistible force." 
The great Athanasius wrote the life of St. Anthony (al- 
though this has been recently questioned), and often 
found shelter from persecution in the mountain caves of 
the hermits. Even the first of the Latin fathers, Jerome 
and Augustine, were mightily attracted by this abnormal 
method of Christian holiness, which sought perfection 
and salvation in flight from the world, rather than in vic- 
tory over the world. 

We must not suppose, however, that Egypt was ever 
thoroughly Christianized. Such men as Origen, Athana- 
sius, and Dionysius, rose, like the Colossi of Thebes or 



124 



BIBLE LANDS, 



the Pyramids of Gheezeh, far above the sandy plain of 
popular ignorance and superstition. Anchoretism and 
monasticism were at best but abnormal and morbid 
forms of Christian life, and grew out of heathen forms of 
asceticism in the neighborhood of Memphis, as much as 
of the Christian spirit of self-denial. Long after the edict 
of Theodosius had prohibited heathenism, the worship of 
Osiris, Isis, and Horus, flourished on the beautiful island 
of Philae, above the First Cataract, where the imposing 
ruins of their temples still remain. The great mass of 
the people simply exchanged a gross for a refined idola- 
try. They ceased to worship and mummify bulls and 
crocodiles, beetles and snakes, but they idolized dead 
men, and built shrines for their bones. What Egyptian 
Christianity was in the fifth century we see in Cyril of 
Alexandria, a zealot for orthodoxy and a despotic ruffian. 
His character is well described in Kingsley's " Hypatia.'' 
Subtle metaphysical controversies absorbed charity and 
took the place of vital, practical Christianity. The sub- 
stance was lost, the empty forms remained. The Church 
of Christ was mummified and buried in the tombs. 

Hence Islam had an easy conquest. It triumphed by 
the sword and the moral force of its monotheism. But, 
as everywhere else, it made no real progress, and has 
seen its best days. The Mohammedan population, which 
forms the great majority of the five millions of Egyp- 
tians, will not be accessible to Christian missionaries 
until the power of the Turks is broken and the Eastern 
question settled in favor of full religious liberty. 

But there is still in Egypt a considerable number of 



CHRISTIANITY IN EGYPT. 125 

Copts (some statements say 500,000), who represent both 
the old Egyptian nationality and Christianity. To this 
they adhere with traditional tenacity, though otherwise 
they are much assimilated to the Arabs, or the Arabs to 
them. They belong to the Eastern schismatics, since 
they reject the orthodox dogma of the two natures of 
Christ, and adhere to the Monophysite heresy. They 
are superior in talent and education to the Arabs, and 
furnish most of the scribes and government clerks. 
Their Christianity is petrified, and consists of empty cer- 
emonies. They do not understand their own Coptic lan- 
guage, which is the language of the hieroglyphics. 

I attended a Coptic wedding in a wealthy family of 
Cairo. It was performed by the patriarch, a bishop, sev- 
eral priests and choristers, and lasted three mortal hours ; 
for marriage, next to birth and death, is the one impor- 
tant event in the life of an Egyptian, and excites the 
greatest interest. The ceremony consisted of the me- 
chanical reading of Coptic and Arabic prayers and Scrip- 
ture sections from a manuscript book, and of discordant 
chanting, or hallooing, such as I never heard before. The 
patriarch looked tired, the bishop stupid, the bridegroom 
indifferent ; the bride, a girl of fifteen, in white dress 
richly adorned, was veiled all over ; the choristers laugh- 
ed ; the dense crowd of friends chatted in the different 
rooms and courts below, or listened to the barbaric mu- 
sic. I asked myself, Is this the Christianity of St. Atha- 
nasius and St. Mark ? Or is it Christianity at all } 

And yet among these Copts a remarkable mission 

work has been going on for the last twenty years, under 

11# 



126 



BIBLE LANDS. 



the care of the United Presbyterian Church of America, 
and by the self-denying labors of Drs. Lansing and Hogg 
and their male and female assistants. 

The first attempt at Protestant missions in Egypt 
was made about a hundred years ago by the Moravians, 
in the fervor of their first enthusiasm, for Christ; but it 
failed, because it was begun in the wrong time. The 
second attempt was made by the English Church Mis- 
sionary Society about fifty years ago, but failed, because 
it was conducted in the wrong method, in the delusive 
hope that the praying corpse of the Coptic Church could 
be galvanized into a living body. 

About twenty-three years ago the missionaries of the 
United Presbyterian Church began their work among 
the Copts. During the first ten years (185 5-1 865) it 
was confined to Cairo and Alexandria. Since then it has 
extended to Middle and Upper Egypt. It began with 
the education of the young during the week, and preach- 
ing on Sunday to small but gradually-increasing audi- 
ences of Copts, Levantine Greeks, and Armenians. Per- 
secution by the clergy, and obstructions and discourage- 
ments of all kinds, were not wanting ; but the work stead- 
ily progressed, souls were converted, schools multiplied, 
and native self-supporting churches organized ; even a 
college and theological seminary were established in Osi- 
out, the capital of Upper Egypt, for the training of a 
native clergy. In Cairo and Osiout the mission has 
acquired valuable property and erected suitable build- 
ings, which contrast most favorably with the mud-houses 
of the native Egyptians. 



CHRISTIANITY IN EGYPT 127 



I examined these fields of labor, attended the services 
in the churches and schools, and became convinced of 
the solid and hopeful character of this mission among 
the Copts, who are naturally intelligent and shrewd. Dr. 
Lansing (in Cairo) and Dr. Hogg (in Osiout) — the for- 
mer an American, the latter a Scotchman — are men of 
superior talent and education, as well as devoted Chris- 
tian character. They have the right spirit, and are full 
of faith and hope. They have mastered the Arabic, and 
preach it with fluency. They have good libraries, filled 
with the latest works of English and American theology. 
The theological students whom I saw seemed to be zeal- 
ous for evangelistic work among their countrymen. The 
day-schools are attended even by Arab children, and 
extend a good influence beyond the mission. It is an 
encouraging fact that the Protestant Copts in Osiout, 
and in some new stations, show much spirit in building 
churches, and supporting them by their own contribu- 
tions, instead of relying on the Missionary Board. The 
Khedive has, from interest in education, aided the Mis- 
sion of Cairo by the grant of a valuable lot in the best 
part of the new city, opposite Shepheard's Hotel and 
near the New Hotel, for the erection of a spacious build- 
ing, which is to accommodate the church and the board- 
ing-school, and to be a depository of Bibles and Christian 
literature. Besides the Arabic service, there is also 
English service there every Sunday during the winter for 
the benefit of travellers. Thus seed is cast upon the fer- 
tilizing waters of the Nile, which in due time will sprout 
and bear fruit for the great harvest. 



128 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Presbyterianism is the only form of Protestantism 
which has taken root among the natives of Egypt. It 
is the evangelical pioneer church. But there are a few 
English and German churches in Alexandria and Cairo, 
for the foreign population in these large cities. 

An admirable educational work of an unsectarian 
missionary character is carried on in Cairo under the 
care of Miss M. L. Whately, the daughter of the late Arch- 
bishop of Dublin, She has been devoting the last fifteen 
years to this noble and self-denying charity. Her schools 
are near the railroad station, and number at present 150 
girls and 250 boys, divided into half a dozen classes. They 
are taught the elementary branches in Arabic ; some learn 
also English, French, and Italian. The Scriptures are 
read and explained, and it seems Mohaemmdan parents 
do not object to it. Miss Whately told me, however, 
that none of her pupils would dare to profess Christian- 
ity and submit to baptism, which would at once provoke 
persecution. She looks more for indirect than direct 
results of her work. I saw the schools in active opera- 
tion, and was very favorably impressed. Among the 
donations for the year 1876, the largest (^i,ooo) was 
from a wealthy and liberal lady of the Episcopal church 
in New York. The whole sum received was ;^950, or 
^4,750. The building is large and commodious. The 
schools are independent of ecclesiastical and episcopal 
control, but receive some support from the English 
Church Missionary Society, and may be brought at some 
future time under the patronage of the Anglo-Prussian 
Bishopric of Jerusalem. 



CHRISTIANITY IN EGYPT, 129 



During my sojourn in Cairo, the Protestant clergymen 
and missionaries of Egypt met in the new mission church 
of Dr. Lansing, to form an Egyptian branch of the Evan- 
gelical Alliance, for mutual protection and encourage- 
ment in their work. The meeting was large and inter- 
esting, and lasted three hours. It embraced a number of 
clergymen from England, Scotland, and America. The 
proceedings were conducted in Arabic, English, and Ger- 
man. I explained the object and aim of the Evangelical 
Alliance, after which addresses were made by Drs. Yule 
(President of the Branch), Lansing, Hogg, Troutvetter, 
Waddington, Ewing, and Watson. Some recent cases 
of persecution of converted Copts were fully discussed. 
The organization opened with considerable zeal and 
energy. 

I add the latest statistics of the American mission 
work in the dominions of the Khedive, 1877, kindly 
furnished to me by Dr. Hogg of Osiout : 

Mission Stations occupied by foreign missionaries : 
3 in the Delta (Alexandria, Monsura, Cairo) ; i in Mid- 
dle Egypt (Fayoom) ; i in Upper Egypt (Osiout). To- 
tal, 5. 

Organized Congregations : 4 supplied by missiona- 
ries ; 4 supplied by native pastors, i self-supporting, 3 
partly self-supporting. Total, 8. 

Evangelistic Centres, or Out-stations, where ^ 
converts have been gathered to the number of from 3 to 
50 : II supplied by preachers or evangelists ; 5 worked 
by native converts. Total, 16. 



130 



BIBLE LANDS, 



Preachers and Evangelists : Foreign missionaries 
in Egypt, 7, absent, 3, making 10; trained natives, 13. 
Total, 23. 

Schools: Supported by the Mission, 12, supported 
by native churches, 17, making 29. Students of theol- 
ogy, 8 ; students of Osiout Training Academy, 70. 



SECOND PART. 

THE 

SiNAiTic Peninsula. 



SECOISTD P^^HT. 

The SiNAiTic Peninsula. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THIRTY DA YS ON THE CAMEL. 

The Great Desert — Its Significance in Sacred His- 
tory—The Company— Tlae Dragoman— The Wait- 
er and Cook — The Bedawin — The Camel — The 
Daily Programme — Benefit of the Journey. 

We now travel with the people of Israel under their 
divinely-called commander through " the great and terri- 
ble wilderness " of the Sinaitic Peninsula. What a con- 
trast between the life and noise of Cairo, and the death 
and silence of the Desert ! 

And yet the Desert has its peculiar charms and his- 
toric interest. It was the school and playground of 
Israel, as Egypt was its cradle. In the Sinaitic Penin- 
sula the Hebrew theocracy was established ; here a semi- 
barbarous horde of slaves was trained to be the chosen 
people of God ; here a code of morals was proclaimed 
which still rules among the followers of the three mono- 
theistic religions ; here some of the sublimist literary 

BlMe Lands. 12 



134 



BIBLE LANDS. 



works were composed, the Pentateuch, the ninetieth 
Psalm, and the poem of Job, which will live as long as 
the human race. St. Paul spent three years in Arabia 
preparing himself for his great work. The Koran, too, 
is a product of the burning sand, and keeps alive the 
fanaticism of the followers of Mohammed. The Desert 
stimulates deep and serious meditation. Its immensity 
and silence suggest grand and solemn thoughts. It 
makes you feel, as you can feel nowhere else, the pres- 
ence and power of God, and the need of his constant 
protection and care. 

A dragoman, a waiter, a cook, sixteen Bedawin and 
sixteen camels loaded with baggage, chicken and turkey 
coops, water-barrels, tents, bedding, all sorts of provis- 
ions, and a cooking apparatus, form the caravan for four 
passengers. The journey lasts thirty days from Suez to 
Gaza or Hebron, via Sinai and Nakhl, and costs each 
passenger a little over two pounds (^lo) per day. Some 
go only to Mount Sinai and back again to Suez, which 
takes three weeks. Others take the route to Akabah, 
Petra, and the Dead Sea, which is more interesting, but 
requires from forty to forty-five days, and an extra back- 
sheesh of ten pounds per person for permission of the 
Bedawin to pass through Petra. We could not take this 
route because of war among the Bedawin tribes, and thus 
missed the pleasure of seeing the Gulf of Akabah, the 
wonderful rock-hewn city of Petra, and ascending Mount 
Hor, where Aaron died. 

Let me first make you acquainted with our company. 
It consists of two American clergymen and two English 



THIRTY DAYS ON THE CAMEL, 



laymen. The former are unarmed, the latter carry pis- 
tols. One of the Americans is a teetotaller, a vegetarian, 
and an enthusiastic botanist, always in pursuit of rare 
plants; and although he touches no wine, no meat, no 
butter, he keeps well and never complains of his diet. 
One of the Englishmen, formerly an officer of the Royal 
Engineers, is silent and somewhat absent-minded, but 
well posted in geography and geology, kind, courteous, 
and amiable. The other Englishman, who is hardly out 
of his teens, takes special delight in natural history, and 
would like above all things to see a live hyena and jackal. 
He keeps the Bedawin busy hunting and bottling snakes, 
scorpions, chameleons, and lizards, which he generously 
intended to present to the museum of his native town ; 
but unfortunately his camel broke the bottles after carry- 
ing them safely to the gates of Gaza. He barely saved 
the horns of an ibex which the Bedawin shot on Mount 
Sinai. Upon the whole, the company is congenial, and 
gets along without a family quarrel, which is so apt to 
break up a miscellaneous party of travellers in the East. 

Our dragoman is the general provider, guide, and 
interpreter, as the word indicates.* He is an indispensa- 
ble necessity in the East since the days of Herodotus, 
who employed one in Egypt. We have no reason to 
complain of Joseph Tanous. He is a Maronite Christian 
from Lebanon, intelligent, courteous, and sober, and 
behaved well till he got to Jerusalem. — He speaks Ara- 
bic, French, and Italian, but not a word of English or 

* From the Chaldee, targuniy u e., explanation, and targetUy to ex- 
plain. 



136 



BIBLE LANDS, 



German. The waiter, Ibrahim, is likewise a Maronite, 
but was brought up in the Protestant school of Bishop 
Gobat, at Jerusalem. He is the only one in the party 
with whom we can converse in English. The cook is an 
Italian, and understands his art as well as a Frenchman. 
He provides us with good meals, well prepared, at short 
notice. 

The Bedawin of the wilderness are a semi-barbarous 
race, without a history, without a political and social 
organization, independent, wild, and warlike, real Ishma- 
elites, whose hands are against every man and every 
man's hands against them. (Gen. 16 : 12.) They have made 
no progress since the days of Ishmael. They are broken 
up into various tribes, and the tribes into several divis- 
ions. A sheikh acts as civil and military chief, but his 
authority is not much respected. They have strong and 
healthy constitutions, and a certain native courtesy and 
dignity. The tribes are frequently at war with each 
other, and this makes travelling sometimes unsafe. The 
Bedawin of the east and northeast of the Peninsula, espe- 
cially the Alawin, have the reputation of being profes- 
sional thieves. Travellers must hire a band of these 
robbers to protect them against their fellow-robbers. 
Being the lords of the wilderness, they claim the right to 
levy tribute on foreigners passing through their territory 
and enjoying their protection. Sometimes, especially at 
Petra, they ask exorbitant sums. But they are by no 
means all thieves. Plomicide is rare among them, owing 
to the ancient habit of blood-revenge, which requires the 
nearest male relative of the slain to kill the murderer at 



THIRTY DA YS ON THE CAMEL, 137 



the first opportunity. An adulterer is shot by the injured 
husband as soon as he is found. 

The Towarah tribe, with which we had to do, are per- 
haps the best among the Bedawin. They seem to be 
free from the lawless and predatory instincts of their 
brethren, owing probably to their contact with foreign 
travellers and with a settled government in their neigh- 
borhood. They are partly in the employ of the convent 
of Mount Sinai, and accompany the travellers from Cairo 
and back. We found them honest, contented, and peace- 
able, and not without noble traits of character. We be- 
came quite attached to them, and they to us. Some cried 
like children when we parted at Gaza. The Towarah are 
very poor ; they have no shoes, but rude sandals made 
of fish-skin, and generally walk barefooted. They wear 
a white shirt, with long open sleeves (which contain their 
valuables), a long robe of goats' or camels' hair, and a 
turban. They live on barley-bread, manna, beans, and 
water ; a cup of coffee and a pipe are great luxuries. 
Occasionally they slaughter a sheep for a feast or for 
sacrifice. They carry long muskets and swords or dag- 
gers, which look more formidable than they really are. 
They have their summer and winter camping-grounds, 
watch their camels, goats, and sheep, and cultivate a few 
patches of ground. They sleep in tents made of goats* 
hair, or in caves ; but when travelling they sleep in the 
open air with their cloaks wrapped around them. Women 
are seldom seen ; they are closely veiled, grind the mill, 
and watch the flocks. They marry early, and are bought 
by their husbands from the father for camels. We were 

12"^ 



138 



BIBLE LANDS. 



told that the bride is generally away in the mountains 
during the negotiation ; when she first sees her lover she 
treats him to stones, but soon surrenders and is carried 
captive to his tent. The birth of a male child is hailed 
with great joy; but "girls/' they say, "are good for 
nothing." 

The religion of the Bedawin amounts to very little 
They are nominally Mohammedans and polygamists, and 
practise circumcision -with great festivities, but are ex- 
tremely ignorant and superstitious. They have no forms 
of worship except sacrifices at the tombs of their saints 
and on the top of Jebel Musa. They do not even pray, 
or very seldom. When I asked my guide Musa why he 
never prayed, like other devout Moslems, he excused 
himself by the want of water to wash the hands, which 
is necessary before praying. When I told him that the 
Koran allows sand in the desert as a substitute for water, 
he seemed surprised, as if he had never heard of it. I 
saw him, however, do homage to the memory of a Moslem 
saint and kiss his stony monument. His opinion about 
Jesus was that he may have been a prophet, but Moham- 
med certainly ivas one, and Allah was the only God. 
Palmer relates that the Bedawin, on awaking in. the 
morning, believe that the Spirit of God sits upon their 
right shoulder, and the devil on their left, sprinkle them- 
selves and repeat the exorcising formula, " I seek refuge 
in God from Satan accursed with stones.'' At sunset 
the same formula is repeated.* I never witnessed this. 
Their highest idea of human happiness is to possess a 

* The Desert of the Exodus^ p. 96- 




CAMEL-RIDING. 



THIRTY DAYS ON THE CAMEL, 139 



Morocco sword, a pretty wife, one or more camels, and 
plenty of tobacco. 

What shall be done with these children of the desert ? 
I asked the monks of the Convent of St. Catharine why 
they never made an attempt to convert them, or — since 
Mohammedan law forbids this — at least to civilize them. 
The answer was, They are a set of camels, and care for 
nothing but their daily food." But they have immortal 
souls, and are redeemed by the blood of Christ, As ne- 
groes and Indians have been civilized, why not they? 
The time will come when the saving arm of Christian 
love will be stretched out to the descendants of Ish- 
mael. 

From the Bedawin we proceed to their favorite animal 
which carries us through the desert. The camel is an 
awkward, ugly, unclean, stupid, and ill-tempered animal, 
and looks like personified misery and discontent. But it 
is truly the ship of the desert,'' and admirably adapted 
for its use on the boundless ocean of sand from the Nile 
to the Euphrates. It has needed no repair since the 
days of Abraham, and could not be improved by any in- 
vention in navigation. No horse or donkey would answer 
the purpose. The camel has the reputation of patient 
endurance and passive submission, which some, however, 
deny, or regard as mere stupidity. It carries the heav- 
iest burdens on its single or double hump, which is its 
natural pack-saddle.* Its very name means burden- 

* The double-humped Bactrian camel of Central Asia and Tartary is 
rarely seen in Egypt and the Desert. I only rode the one-humped drom» 
edary. 



BIBLE LANDS. 



bearer. It can travel five (some say nine or even fifteen) 
days in scorching heat without water, and resort to its 
inside tank or cistern, which, at the sacrifice of its own 
life, has saved the life of many a traveller. It lives on 
barley, dry beans, and chopped straw while in camp, and 
on the prickly thistles and thorns of the wilderness, 
which, much to the annoyance of the rider, it snatches 
from the wayside and leisurely chews as a positive lux- 
ury. It supplies its master with milk, fuel, sandals, and 
garments ; and having done its duty, it leaves its bleach- 
ed skeleton in the arid waste as a landmark to future 
travellers. With peculiar gurgling growls or sighs of 
protest, unlike the sounds of any other animal, the camel 
goes down on its knees in four distinct motions, till it 
lies on its belly ; growling it receives its burden ; growl- 
ing it gets up by several jerks, first on the hind-legs, 
then on the front-legs, so that the rider is violently 
pitched forward and then as violently jerked backward, 
and must hold fast to the saddle or be thrown down on 
the sand. Once started, the beast moves with long 
strides on its soft, spongy feet steadily and noiselessly 
forward as under a painful sense of duty, but without the 
least interest in the rider. A primitive wooden frame 
serves as saddle, and the mattress or pillow on which we 
sleep at night is thrown over it as a seat. The swinging 
motion high in the air is disagreeable and makes us a 
little seasick, but we gradually get used to it. To break 
the monotony and the fatigue we change our position, 
now riding as on horseback, now crossing the legs like 
the Arabs, now sitting on one side and then on the other. 



THIRTY DAYS ON THE CAAIEL, 141 



I parted with the ''Djemel" at Gaza not without a cer- 
tain admiration and respect, and yet I was glad to ex- 
change it for the noble, spirited, and dashing horse. The 
Bible mentions the camel only incidentally, though in a 
way that implies its great usefulness ; while the horse is 
described with glowing colors and honored with eloquent 
eulogy (Job 39 : 19-25).* 

* Miss Harriet Martineau was unfortunate in her experience with the 
camel. Nothing can be uglier," she says, "unless it be the ostrich, 
which is ludicrously like the camel in form, gait, and expression of face. 
The patience of the camel, so celebrated in books, is what I never had 
the pleasure of seeing. So impatient a beast I do not know — growling, 
groaning, and fretting whenever asked to do or bear anything, looking as 
if it longed to bite, if only it dared. Its malignant expression of face is 
lost in pictures, but it may be seen whenever one looks for it. The min- 
gled expression of spite, fear, and hopelessness, in the face of the camel 
always gave me the impression of its being, or feeling itself, a damned 
animal. I wonder some of the old painters of hell did not put a camel 
into their foreground, and make a traditional emblem of it. It is true the 
Arab loves his own camel, kisses its lips, hugs its neck, calls it his darling 
and his jewel, and declares he loves it exactly as he loves his eldest son; 
but it does not appear that any man's affection extends beyond his own 
particular camel, which is truly for its services an inestimable treasure to 
him. He is moved to kick and curse at any but the domestic member of 
the species, as he would be by the perverseness and spite of any other 
ill-tempered creature. The one virtue of the camel is its ability to work 
without water ; but, out of the Desert, I hardly think that any rider would 
exchange the willing, intelligent, and proud service of the horse for that 
of the camel, which objects to everything, and will do no service but under 
the compulsion of its own fears." Eastern Life, new ed., London, p. 5. 
Palgrave, in his jfourney through Central and Eastern Arabia (London, 
1873, P* 25), is equally severe on the camel, and makes stupidity, indiffer- 
ence, and passion for revenge its prominent characteristics. He relates 
that a camel having been beaten by a boy, a few days afterwards, when 
nobody was in sight, seized his head, lifted him up in the air, and flung 
him down again on the earth with the upper part of his skull completely 
torn off and his brains scattered on the ground. Having thus satisfied its 
revenge, the brute quietly resumed its pace as though nothing were the 
matter. " The camel," he says, " is from first to last an undomesticated 



142 



BIBLE LANDS. 



The programme of travel is the same for thirty or 
forty days. Before sunrise the camels begin to growl 
and the Bedawin to quarrel about the baggage. We 
get up ; offer our prayers, eat our breakfast, consisting 
of coffee, bread and butter, and omelette or boiled eggs, 
while the tents are taken down, and the camels loaded 
amid much noise and clamor ; we take a morning walk ^ 
or at once mount our beast. At noon we stop for lunch 
and enjoy an hour s rest, lying under the shadow of a 
rock or the umbrella, or like Elijah under a juniper-bush, 
or a tree of shittim-wood — of which the ark was built. If 
there is no natural shelter within reach, the dragoman 
spreads a small tent to protect us against the scorching 
heat. Then another ride of two or three hours till in 
the distance we see the white tents which have been 
erected by the Bedawin in charge of the baggage camels, 
two for the four passengers, one for the dragoman and 
cook. It is a delightful sight, after a weary ride of seven 
or eight hours over a distance of twenty-five miles of sand 
and rock. 

Then begins the enjoyable part of the day. We 
throw ourselves down upon the iron bedstead, for it is 
the only place where we can stretch our limbs and rest 
our backs. In about half an hour the bell rings for din- 
ner, and it tastes as good as on any table d'hote in Europe. 
Hunger is the best cook. We get soup, two courses of 
meat, eggs, potatoes, rice and beans, nuts^ and an ever- 

and savage animal, rendered serviceable by stupidity alone, without much 
skill on his master's part or any cooperation on his own, save that of an 
extreme passiveness. Neither attachment nor even habit impresses him; 
never tame, though not wide awake enough to be exactly wild." 



THIRTY DAYS ON THE CAMEL, 



143 



welcome orange for dessert, with a cup of tea. But the 
bread becomes stale, the water insipid, the orange dry, 
and the chickens and eggs give out as we approach the 
end of the journey. After dinner we fill up our journal, 
study the map, read the Bible and guide-book, and then 
go to bed. The Bedawin with the camels lie a few yards 
from us encamped on the ground around a fire and watch 
our tents. They smoke and chat and quarrel till all fall 
asleep under the bright stars. 

A journey through the wilderness is no pleasure trip. 
It costs more for discomforts than we pay for comforts in 
civilized lands. The romance of camp-life among the wild 
Bedawin lies in anticipation and reminiscence, rather 
than actual experience. The intense heat, the vile in- 
sects, the growling of camels, the barbarous habits of the 
Arabs, the occasional sand-storms, and the many inevita- 
ble inconveniences, take away the rainbow color from the 
poetry. The journey is a weariness to the flesh from 
beginning to end, and ought not to be attempted except 
by persons of vigorous constitution. 

And yet it impresses itself more deeply on the mem- 
ory than most parts of an Eastern journey. It is instruc- 
tive to the geologist, the botanist, the archaeologist, and 
the Biblical student. It is a great satisfaction to pass over 
the route of the Israelites on their way to the land of 
promise, and to ascend the mount from which God made 
his greatest revelation before the coming of Christ. It 
brings the early Bible history nearer and makes it clearer 
to us. It imparts a life and reality to the books of Exo- 
dus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, which they 



144 



BIBLE LANDS. 



never had before. It enables us to understand and ap- 
preciate the trials and sufferings, the murmurings and 
ingratitude of the Israelites, and the greatness, the pa- 
tience and endurance of Moses. Many objections of 
modern skeptics against the truthfulness of the Penta- 
teuch are at once removed by a knowledge of the geog- 
raphy and the mode of life among the present Arabs. 
The frequent Scripture allusions to the refreshing foun- 
tains of the Desert, the palm-tree, the shadow of a rock, 
the manna, receive new force. No man can encamp at 
'Ayun-Musa, Wady Ghurundel, and Wady Taiyibeh, with- 
out reading with a peculiar sensation even the simple 
words, "And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells 
of water and threescore and ten palm-trees; and they 
encamped there by the waters." Ex. 15 : 27. 

And what is Christian life, after all, but a repetition on 
a higher key of the story of Israel : a deliverance from 
the bondage of sin and death, and a passage through the 
desert and over the Jordan to our heavenly home of rest 
and peace. 



\ 



THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 145 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE GREAT WILDERNESS, 

Shape and Extent of the Peninsula — Its Mineral 
Wealth— Job's Allusion to the Mines— Dreary As- 
pect of the Desert— An Ocean of Sand and Gravel 
—Oases — Wadys — The Mountain Ranges — The 
Alps of the Desert— The Former and the Present 
Condition of the Desert. 

The Sinaitic Peninsula is a triangle bordered by the 
Mediterranean Sea and the two arms of the Red Sea, the 
Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of 'Akabah. It covers an area 
of 11,600 square miles; the base measuring nearly 150 
miles, and the sides of the triangle 190 and 130 miles 
respectively.^ 

It consists of broad, undulating plains, narrow valley^, 
dry river-beds, isolated mountains, and precipitous rocks 
of limestone and granite, with fantastic shapes and gor- 
geous coloring. It is rich in mineral wealth of iron, cop- 
per, and turquoise, so that the Egyptians called it Maf- 
kat,'* i. e.y Land of Copper or Turquoise. These mines 
are now neglected, but were once worked on a large scale 
by the ancient Egyptians, especially in the neighborhood 
of Serabit el Khadim and Magharah, where hieroglyphic 
tablets still record the names and titles of the kings. f 

* E. H. Palmer, The Desert of the Exodus, p. 17. 
t See Dr. Brugsch, Wander mtg nach den Turkisminen der Si7iai-Halh' 
insely Leipzig, 1868. Also the graphic description of Dr. Ebers, in Uarda^ 

Bible Tiands. 13 



146 



BIBLE LANDS. 



The Bible also contains an allusion to these mines in 
the highly poetic description of Job (ch. 28 : i-li) : 

" Yes, truly, for the silver there 's a vein, 
A place for gold which they refine. 
The iron from the dust is brought, 
And copper from the molten ore. 
To (nature's) darkness man is setting bounds ; 
Unto the end he searcheth everything — 
The stones of darkness and the shade of death. 
Breaks from the settler's view the deep ravine ; 
And there, forgotten of the foot-worn path, 
rhey let them down — from men they roam afar. 
Earth's surface (they explore) whence comes forth bread — 
Its lowest depths, where it seems turned to fire ; 
Its stones the place of sapphire gems, 
Where lie the glebes of gold. 
A path the bird of prey hath never known. 
Nor on it glanced the vulture's piercing sight, 
Where the wild beast hath never trod. 
Nor roaring jackal ever passed it by. 
Against the granite sends he forth his hand; 
He overturns the mountains from their base. 
He cutteth channels in the rocks ; 
His eye beholdeth every precious thing. 
From weeping bindeth he the streams. 
The deeply hidden brings he forth to light."* 

The general aspect of the Peninsula is barren, deso- 
late, and dreary. It is an ocean of sand, hard gravel, 
and rock, but covered more or less with thorns and fra- 
grant herbs, on which the camels feed, and broken here 
and there by oases, romantic valleys, and lofty moun- 

A Romance of Ancient Egypt, ch. 34 (Engl, translation, ed. Tauchiiitz, 
Vol. II., p. 156). 

* Translation by Tayler Lewis, in the American edition of Lange, p. 
116. 



THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 147 

tains. Every now and then you see a few camels, a herd 
of goats, a rude tent, and some roaming Bedawin, but 
no village, no sign of civilization, and no dwelling fit to 
live in except the convent of Mount Sinai. 

The Wadys — a name of constant occurrence in the 
Desert— are dry water-courses, sometimes very broad, 
which in the rainy season receive the torrents from the 
mountains, and carry them to the sea (compare Psalm 
68 : 7-9). But the rainfall is rare, and evaporation so 
rapid, that in a few minutes the ground is dry and thirsty 
again. During the whole month of March I saw not a 
drop of rain, while other travellers in the same season 
were overtaken by thunderstorms on Mount Sinai. We 
may travel for days without a drop of water from the 
sky above or the earth beneath ; but occasionally we are 
surprised by fountains and little rivulets, and alongside 
of them are small tracts of tropical vegetation, with 
palm-trees, acacias, tamarisks, juniper-trees, and shittim- 
wood. 

These oases are most delightful and refreshing to the 
weary traveller. They are found chiefly in the granite 
region, in the neighborhood of Serbal and Sinai. The 
narrow Wady Feiran, where water and vegetation abound, 
is the most beautiful and attractive oasis in the wilder- 
ness. The monks of St. Catharine avail themselves of 
every little stream to plant gardens of vegetables, olive- 
trees, peach, and apricot. 

The principal mountain groups are (i) the northwest- 
ern cluster above Wady Feiran, with Serbal as its king ; 
(2) the eastern or central cluster, of which Mount Catha- 



148 



BIBLE LANDS 



rine is the highest, but Mount Sinai the most remarkable 
in the whole Peninsula ; the southeastern cluster, com- 
manded by Umm Schomer. Mount Sinai is most famil- 
iar and most frequently ascended. Mount Serbal is very 
difficult of ascent, and rarely ascended. Umm Schomer 
has only been once or twice ascended, first by Burckhardt 
(though only in part), and a few years ago (1869) by the 
party of the English Ordnance-Survey Expedition. It 
was formerly regarded as the highest mountain of the 
Desert, but according to the measurements of the Ord- 
nance Survey it is lower than Mount Catharine. 

The mountains of the Desert are "the Alps un- 
clothed," or the naked Alps. They are less varied and 
attractive than the Swiss Alps, being denuded of ver- 
dure, forest, meadows, snow, and glaciers ; but in terri- 
ble grandeur and sublimity they equal Mont Blanc, the 
Matterhorn, and the Jungfrau. Their isolation makes 
them appear greater than they are. Nature seems here 
to show," says Professor E. H. Palmer, " that in her most 
barren and uninviting moods she can be exquisitely beau- 
tiful still." 

In the time of the Exodus, when the Peninsula con- 
tained a considerable population and large colonies of 
Egyptian miners, it was no doubt better supplied with 
water, wood, and vegetation than now. This lessens the 
difficulty connected with the forty years' wanderings of 
the Israelites. Yet, considering their large number, it 
is quite necessary to take into account the supernatural 
supply of food and water as recorded in the sacred narra- 
tive. At' present the Peninsula is utterly neglected and 



THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 149 



barely able to support a few thousand roaming Bedawin, 
with their camels, sheep, and goats. But the time may 
come when railroads will connect Egypt with Syria, and 
when, under a good government and with an industrious 
population, parts of the Desert may be made to bloom 
like a garden." 



13* 



BIBLE LANDS, 



CHAPTER XVI. 

'AYUN MUSA AND THE EXODUS. 

In the Wilderness — A Restful Day — Ayun Musa— 
'Twixt Two Continents — Date-Palms and Tam- 
arisks—A Noted Spot—The Exodus and Route of 
the Israelites — Three Theories — The Traditional 
Theory— Robinson's Theory— Brugsch's Theory— 
The Hebrew Te Deum. 

Ayun Musa, or the Wells of Moses, about seven 
miles southeast of Suez, is the first station in the wilder- 
ness on the route to Sinai. We reach the city of Suez 
by railroad from Cairo, through the land of Goshen, via 
Zigazig and Ismailia, in a day's journey, and there we 
meet our dragoman and the caravan which started two 
days before directly through the Egyptian desert. We 
spend a night and half a day at Suez in a large hotel, 
served by silent Indian waiters ; we watch the East 
India ships and the strong tide ; we chat with some Eng- 
lish officers ; we wander on the shore and through the 
town, and then bid farewell to Egypt and Africa. Our 
first and last thought in this lonely place, which is sim- 
ply a halfway house to India, is of the Exodus of the 
Israelites. 

We leave Suez by boat (on Saturday noon, March 3) 
For the Asiatic shore, while the camels and luggage are 
sent on the longer land route, round the head of the 
2^ulf. We are carried over the shallow waters on the 



A YUN MUSA AND THE EXODUS. 1 5 1 

shoulders of stout Arabs, mount the ship of the desert 
ready to receive its burden, and after a ride of about two 
hours we reach the tents before dark, to rest for the 
night and for the following day, our first Sabbath in the 
wilderness. 

And oh how welcome the sweet day of rest in the 
unbroken silence of the great wilderness ! And doubly 
welcome was every one of the four that followed, after a 
week's weary ride over the arid sand, under the scorch- 
ing sun of Arabia. I thought I was sound on the Sab- 
bath question, but I confess, never before did I feel so 
deeply the benevolent design of this primitive institu- 
tion, which, like the family, dates from Paradise, and was 
proclaimed anew from Mount Sinai among the ten fun- 
damental commandments, for the physical and spiritual 
benefit of man. Our whole party looked forward to the 
day of rest as a necessity and a blessing for man and 
beast. The camels need it, and man needs it to rest his 
body and to refresh his soul. And what can be more 
refreshing than to meditate on things invisible and eter- 
nal, to commune with God, to read the good Book, and 
to sing the sweet songs of Zion in the lonely tent or un- 
der the canopy of heaven } I find that Dr. Robinson had 
the same experience of the peculiar charm of a Sabbath 
in the desert. 

Ayun Musa is a green oasis in the sandy desert and 
a most interesting and welcome place of rest and medita- 
tion. Here is the boundary between two continents, 
which confront each other like two giants in majestic 
repose. Two miles off is the river-like sea so famous in 



BIBLE LANDS. 



nistory, and beyond it, on African soil, towers the silvery 
mountain of Atakah. There are at Ayun Musa five 
vegetable gardens, with a dozen or more springs of water 
(Robinson counted seven, Porter mentions more than 
twelve, Stanley seventeen), a few Arab huts, lofty date- 
palms, and tamarisks. We are strongly reminded of 
Elim (Exod. 1 5 : 27) ; but this must be farther off, as Moses 
wandered three days after crossing till he reached Elim 
(ver. 22). Close by the oasis is a sand-hill, with a soli- 
tary palm-tree and a fountain of brackish water. We 
walked along the seashore, gathered rare and beautiful 
shells, took a refreshing bath, and mused over the potent 
memories of the past. The color of the water is bluish- 
green, and the " Red " Sea has its name from the red 
sand on the shore. The Hebrews and Egyptians called 
it the Sea of Weeds or the Sea of Reeds. Every step,** 
we say with Ebers, "reminds us here of the Bible, and 
we understand it better and better.'* 

In this neighborhood is the traditional locality of one 
of the greatest events in ancient history, which left its 
mark upon all subsequent ages. Here Moses refreshed 
and rested his people after crossing the Red Sea. Here 
he sung with Miriam and the children of Israel the Song 
of Deliverance (Exod. 15 : 1-19). 

THE EXODUS OF THE ISRAELITES. 
The Scripture data about the Exodus are as follows : 
The Israelites started from Rameses and proceeded 
to Succoth (Exod. 12:37); thence to Etham "in the 
edge of the wilderness'* (13:20); here they were to 



AYUN MUSA AND THE EXODUS. 153 









1 SerajjenajP \\ 


^^^^ 





''turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol 
and the sea, over against Baal-Zephon" (14:2). With 
these notices must be compared the Hst of camping sta- 
tions which Moses wrote down by the commandment of 
the Lordj Num. 33:2-10: "These are their journeys 
according to their goings out. And they journeyed from 
Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the 

first month And the children of Israel journeyed 

from Rameses, and pitched in Succoth. And they 
journeyed from Succoth, and pitched in Etham, which is 
-in the edge of the wilderness. And they journeyed from 
Etham, and turned back unto Pi-hahiroth, which is before 
Baal-Zephon : and they pitched before Migdol. And 
they journeyed from before Hahiroth (or, from Peueha- 



154 



BIBLE LANDS. 



hiroth), and passed through the midst of the sea into the 
wilderness; and they went three days' journey in the 
wilderness of Etham, and pitched in Marah. And they 
journeyed from Marah and came unto Elim : and in Elim 
were twelve fountains of water, and threescore and ten 
palm-trees : and they pitched there. And they journeyed 
from Elim and pitched by the Red Sea." 

When the Egyptians came upon the track of the 
Israelites they said, They are entangled in the land, the 
wilderness hath shut them in'' (Ex. 14:3), or rather, 
*'the wilderness is closed against them," i, the Israel- 
ites have no egress from Egypt ; they must either return 
or cross the sea. Moses intended to go by the way of 
the wilderness, but when he turned southward by Divine 
command, he was shut in by the waters of the Red Sea 
which then probably extended farther north to the 
Bitter Lakes. This indicates the general locality of the 
Exodus and seems conclusive against Brugsch's theory. 
(See below.) 

As to the particular locality of these stations before 
the arrival of the Israelites at the Red Sea there is con- 
siderable uncertainty. Rameses, the place of general 
rendezvous — where the Israelites must have been very 
numerous, since they built or enlarged that city — may be 
identified, as Dr. Brugsch does, with Zoan (Tanis), where 
Moses performed his miracles, or be placed farther south 
on the old canal which connected the Nile with the Red 
Sea. Succoth must have been halfway between Rameses 
and Etham. It is usually derived from the Hebrew word 
which means booths, shepherd's camp; but Ebers con- 



A YUN MUSA AND THE EXODUS, 



155 



nects it with an Egyptian town Sechet (Fields).* Etham 
was probably the same with Pithom (Pi-tum), and the 
frontier city towards the wilderness, between Lake 
Timsah and the Bitter Lakes, where the route to Pales- 
tine branches off. Pi-hahiroth, an Egyptian word, is 
usually identified with Ajrud or Agrud, a fortress on the 
way from Etham to Suez. Migdol, i. e,, Tower or Fort, 
is supposed to be Bir Suweis, about two miles from Suez. 
Baal-Zephon must have been likewise near Suez or 
Kolzum, perhaps it is identical with Mount Atakah.f 
Baal was the chief deity of the Phoenicians, who had at 
a very ancient period a settlement in lower Egypt. 

The miraculous passage itself is thus recorded in 
Exodus 14:21, 22 : "And Moses stretched out his hand 
over the sea ; and Jehovah caused the sea to go back by 
a strong east wind all the night, and made the sea dry 
land, and the waters were divided. And the children of 
Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry 
ground : and the waters were a wall unto them on their 
right hand and on their left.'' 

There are three or four theories about the locality 
and mode of the Exodus : 

I. The Arab tradition locates the Exodus several 
miles south of Suez, between the promontory of Atakah 
and the opposite shore of Ayun Musa, where the Red 
Sea is about ten miles (Robinson says twelve miles, 

* Durch Gosen zum Smai^ p. 506. 

t This is the view of Dr. Ebers (p. 510, sq.) who assumes that there 
was a sanctuary of Baal on the top of Atakah. Dr. Brugsch on the con- 
trary identifies Baal-Zephon with Mount Casius on the shore of the Med- 
iterranean. (See below.) 



156 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Porter seven miles) broad. This view seems to accord 
best with a literal meaning of the narrative, that the 
waters were divided and stood up like a wall or like 
entrenchments on both sides of the passing army. But 
it is impossible that 600,000 armed men with women and 
children, and their herds of cattle, could have crossed 
such- a distance in one night, without a prodigious accu- 
mulation of miracles. And would the Egyptians have 
dared to follow the Israelites through the deep sea, and 
in view of such an amazing and overpowering interposi- 
tion of God t Could the east wind or any wind have such 
an effect on the sea so wide as it is here } And if not, 
why is it mentioned at all as an agent .'^ 

2. That the event occurred at the head of the gulf, near 
or some distance north of Suez. The gulf has the shape 
of a horn, and is a shallow channel less than a mile wide 
and about four miles long, running from north to south. 
In it are several small islands and sandbanks, bare when 
the water is low. (See J. L. Porter s Handbook.) It 
may have extended as a reedy marsh considerably farther 
north, perhaps as far as the Bitter Lakes. The crossing 
took place during the time of an extraordinary ebb, which 
was hastened and extended by a continuous night storm 
blowing from the east (northeast) against the water, 
and laid bare the whole ford for the passage of the Israel- 
ites ; after which the sea, in its reflux, returned with 
double the usual power of the flood tide, and overwhelm- 
ed Pharaoh's army. In ordinary times, many a caravan 
crossed the ford at the head of the gulf at low ebb before 
the Suez Canal was built; and Napoleon, deceived by 



AYUN MUSA AND THE EXODUS, 157 



the tidal wave, attempted to cross it on returning from 
'Ayun Musa in 1799, and nearly met the fate of Pharaoh. 
But an army of 600,000 could, of course, never have 
crossed it without a miracle. The question is only 
whether the miracle was immediate or mediate; in other 
words, whether God suspended the laws of nature, or 
whether he used them as agencies both for the salvation 
of his people and for the overthrow of his enemies. The 
express mention of the "strong east wind" which Jeho- 
vah caused to blow "all the night" decidedly favors the 
latter view, which is also supported by an examination of 
the spot. The tide at Suez, which I watched from the 
top of the Suez Hotel, is very strong and rapid, especially 
under the action of the northeast wind.* This wind often 
prevails there and acts powerfully on the ebb tide, dri- 
ving out the waters from the small arm of the sea which 
runs up by Suez, while the more northern part of the 
arm would still remain covered with water, so that the 
waters on both sides served as walls of defence or en- 
trenchments to the passing army of Israel. In no other 
part of the gulf would the east wind have the effect of 
driving out the water. Dr. Robinson calls the miracle 
a "miraculous adaptation of the laws of nature to pro- 
duce a required result." The same view is adopted 
by other modern scholars. It does not diminish the 
miracle, but only adapts it to the locality and the natural 

* Dr. Ebers says (p. loi), einem star ken Nordostwinde^ der nicht 

selten weht, werden die Wellen nach Suden zn in den schmalen Meerbusen 
geradeztc hineingepeitscht^ so zwar, dass die iii horizontaler Linie nordlich von 
Suez sick hinstreckenden vier Inseln nur durch Lachen getrennt zti sein 
soheineny jedoch thatsachlich durch tiefe Wassergraben von dent Festlande 
tind von einander geschieden sind''' 

Bible Lands. 14 



158 



BIBLE LANDS. 



agency which is expressly mentioned by the Bible 
narrative.* ' 

3. The least satisfactory theory is that recently elab- 
orated by Dr. Brugsch. He locates the Exodus farther 
north, on the usual route from Egypt to Syria, between 
the Mediterranean Sea and the Sirbonian Lake, east of 
Port Said. This lake was a long and narrow sheet of 
water, now filled with sand, but well known to the ancients, 
and is described by Diodorus as being overgrown with 
seaweeds and papyrus, so as to deceive travellers, who 
might easily mistake the surface for dry land, and perish 
in it. The Israelites passed safely over the narrow strip 
of land between the waters of the sea and the waters of 
the lake, and then suddenly turned, by divine command, 
southward, and arrived in three days at Marah — i. e.y the 

* I will also quote from Prof. E. H. Palmer, The Desert of the Exodus 
(1871), Vol. I., p. 36: "From the narrative in Exodus 14, it would seem 
that the Egyptians came upon them before they had rounded the head of 
the Gulf, so as to compel them either to take to the water or fall into 
their enemies' hands, equally fatal alternatives, from which nothing but a 
miracle, such as that recorded, could have saved them. But natural 
agencies, miraculously accelerated, are mentioned as the means employed 
by God in working out this signal deliverance, and we need not, therefore, 
suppose anything so contrary to the laws of nature as that the children of 
Israel crossed between two vertical walls of water in the midst of the 
deep sea, according to the popular mode of depicting the scene. Some 
writers have imagined that a great change has taken place in the level of 
the sea since the time of the Exodus, but recent examination does not at 
all confirm this hypothesis, while there is abundant evidence that the 
northern end of the Gulf of Suez has been gradually silted up, and that in 
consequence the shore-line has steadily advanced farther and farther 
southwards. It follows from this that, if, according to the view held by 
many modern authorities, the passage took place at the head of the Gulf 
as it existed at the time of the Exodus, the Israelites must have crossed 
at a point several miles north of its present limits." 



AYUN MUSA AND THE EXODUS, 159 



Bitter Lakes of the Isthmus ; while the Egyptians, on 
their hot pursuit, were overtaken by a sand-storm, lost 
their way into the Sirbonian Lake and perished there. 

Dr. Brugsch supports his theory by the alleged 
identity of the Hebrew camping-stations with supposed 
old Egyptian localities. He identifies Rameses, whence 
the Israelites started, with Tanis or Zoan ; locates 
Pi-hahiroth on the western end of the Sirbonian Lake, 
and Baal-Zephon at the eastern end of it ; he identifies 
the Sea of Weeds (which in our version is always trans- 
lated the Red Sea) with the Sirbonian Lake, Marah with 
the Bitter Lakes, and Elim with Aalim (Fishtown) or 
Heroopolis, northeast of Suez.* 

But these identifications are mere conjectures, and 
the whole theory is inconsistent with the Mosaic narra- 
tive, which assumes a direct route to the mount of God. 
It is expressly said that ^'God led them, not through the 
way of the land of the Philistines, although that was 
near" (that is the usual route through the little desert to 
Gaza), "but through the way of the wilderness of the 
Red Sea." (Ex. 13:17, 18.) Dr. Brugsch dislocates the 
whole itinerary of the Israelites before and after the 
Exodus, and does away with the miracle altogether, or 
resolves it into a mere providence.f 

The choice lies, therefore, between the first two views. 
We prefer the second. But the precise spot can, of 

* See his address before the International Society of Orientalists in 
London, L'exode et les monuments egyptiens, Leipzig 1865 (35 pages), ac- 
companied by a map. 

t He says himself (p. 32) : "Z^ miracle, il est vrai, cesse d'etre un mira- 
cle ; mais la Providence divine maintient toujours sa place et son alitor ite J''' 



i6o 



BIBLE LANDS. 



course, not be identified. It is not likely that any of Pha- 
raoh's chariots will ever come to light, or that any monu- 
mental record of the Egyptians will confess their disgrace. 
Possibly some papyrus may be found with a private 
account of the great event. Till then we must here as 
in other disputed localities be satisfied with the identifi- 
cation of the general locality. 

After crossing the Red Sea the Israelites, like all 
modern travellers, would naturally make Ayun Musa their 
first station, where they found an ample supply of water. 

On this memorable spot we read, as we never read 
before, that wonderful patriotic ode of liberty which 
Moses composed and sung with the children of Israel ; 
chorus answering to chorus, and the maidens playing on 
the timbrels. It is the national anthem, the Te Deunty 
the Ntm danketalle Gott, of the Hebrews. It is altogether 
worthy of the historic event which inspired it. It sounds 
through the psalms of Israel, through the thanksgiving 
hymns of the Christian church, through the touching 
songs of liberated slaves, and it will swell the harmony 
of the hymns of saints in heaven, when they celebrate the 
final triumph of redemption in ^'the song of Moses the 
servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.** 

1 will sing unto Jehovah, 

For he hath triumphed gloriously: 
The horse and his rider 

Hath he thrown into the sea. 
Jehovah is my strength and song, 

And he is become my salvation. 
This is my God, and I will praise him; 

My father's God, and I will exalt him. 



AYUN MVSA AND THE EXODUS. 



Jehovah is a man of war ; 

Jehovah is his name. 
Pharaoh's chariots and his hosts 

Hath he cast into the sea: 
And his chosen captains 

Are sunk in the Red Sea. 
The depths cover them. 

They went down to the bottom like a stone. 

Thy right hand, O Jehovah, glorious in power, 

Thy right hand, O Jehovah, dasheth in pieces the enemy 
And in the greatness of thy majesty 

Thou overturnest them that rise up against thee : 
Thou sendest forth thy wrath. 

It consumeth them hke stubble. 
And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were piled up 

The floods stood upright as a heap. 

The depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. 
The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, 

I will divide the spoil. 
My soul shall be satisfied upon them ; 

I will draw my sword. 

My hand shall destroy them. 
Thou didst blow with thy wind, 

The sea covered them : 

They sank as lead in the mighty waters. 

Who is like unto thee, O Jehovah, among the gods ? 

Who is like thee, glorious in holiness. 

Fearful in praises, doing wonders ? 
Thou didst stretch out thy right hand. 

The earth swallowed them. 
Thou in thy mercy didst lead the people 

Which thou hast redeemed. 
Thou didst guide them in thy strength 

To thy holy habitation. 

14=^ 



BIBLE LANDS 



The peoples have heard, they tremble : 

Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia. 
Then were the chiefs of Edom dismayed. 

The mighty men of-Moab, trembling taketh hold upon them. 
All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away ; 

Terror and dread fall upon them. 
By the greatness of thine arm they are as still as a stone ; 

Till thy people pass over, O Jehovah, 
Till the people pass over 

Which thou hast purchased. 
- Thou shalt bring them in, 

And plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance. 
The place, O Jehovah, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, 

The sanctuary, O Jehovah, which thou hast established. 
Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever. 



FROM 'A YUN MUSA TO MT, SINAI. 163 



CHAPTERXVII. 

FROM 'A YUN MUSA TO MOUNT SINAL 

Hawarah, the Bitter Water— Wady Ghurundel (Elim) 
— Wady Useit— Wady Taiyibeh— Encamped by the 
Red Sea— The Hot Baths of Pharaoh— The Mines 
of Maghara— Wady Mokatteb and the Sinaitie In- 
scriptions — Wady Feiran — Rephidim — Mount Ser- 
bal— The Pass of the Wind— First Sight of Er 
Rahah, the Convent and Mount Sinai. 

We leave 'Ayun Musa early on Monday and ride for 
two days over a dead level of sand and gravel without 
seeing a house or a man or an animal or a tree, only 
every now and then the skeleton of a camel which marks 
the track. In this region Dean Stanley was overtaken 
by a roaring and driving sand-storm, which lasted a 
whole day and explained to him the term "howling" 
wilderness. The whole air, he says, was filled with a 
tempest of sand driving in your face like sleet ; the 
Bedawin rode with their shawls thrown over their heads, 
and half of the riders sat backwards ; while the camels 
moved painfully onwards, seriously impeded by their 
saddle-bags which act like sails, and stretching from time 
to time their long necks sideways to avoid the blast. 
We had a similar experience in crossing the Et Tih. 

On the third day we reach Ain Hawarah,* a solita- 

* " Fountain of Destruction," according to the usual interpretation. 
But Mr. Palmer spells the word with double w {Hawwarah) and explains 
it to mean *'a small pool." 



164 



BIBLE LANDS. 



ry dilapidated spring of bitter water on an elevation, six- 
teen hours* camel ride from 'Ayun Musa. It is usually 
identified with Marah (Bitterness), mentioned Exod. 
15:22, 23 (comp. Num. 33:8, 9): "So Moses brought 
Israel from the Red Sea (the Sea of Weeds), and they 
went out into the wilderness of Shur ; and they went 
three days in the wilderness and found no water. And 
when they came to Marah they could not drink of the 
waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the 
name of it was called Marah." Moses then threw a tree 
or aromatic shrub into the water and made it sweet. It 
seems impossible, however, that a single fountain like 
that could have quenched the thirst of two millions, who 
it is supposed would require 33,000 buckets of water in 
one day. Probably there were more springs at that time, 
A ride of two hours brings us to Wady Ghurundel 
(or Gharandel), which is usually identified with the elim 
of the Scripture (Ex. 15 127; Num. 33 19); while others 
locate Elim farther south in Wady Useit or Wady Taiyi- 
beh. It certainly must have been in this neighborhood. 
Ghurundel is the first pleasant spot we meet with in the 
wilderness. It might easily be turned into a garden. It 
has a running brook with sweet fresh water, fringed with 
feathery tamarisks, wild acacias (or shittim-wood), a few 
palm-trees and plenty of shrubs and grass. 

Oh ! T bless the gracious Giver 
For the fountain and the river! 
Bless him for this cool retreat, 
So reviving and so sweet 1 



FROM 'A YJJN MUSA TO MT, SINAI. 165 



Bless him for this short recess 
From my toil and weariness, 
And for this delicious cup 
From the well that cometh up !" 

On the next day after a ride of two hours and a half 
we come to Wady Useit, which rivals Ghurundel in abun- 
dance of water and vegetation. In the afternoon of the 
same day we encamp, under the shadow of a beautiful 
rock and alongside of a stream, in Wady Taiyibeh (or 
Tayabeh) which is the third claimant to the title of Elim. 

From this spot we enjoy a delightful morning walk 
through a wild romantic valley enclosed on both sides by 
high granite rocks of fantastic formation and gorgeous 
coloring, red, black, and yellow, to the Gulf, and take a 
most refreshing bath in the blue waters of the sea. 
Here no doubt the Israelites, a month after their depar- 
ture from Egypt, "encamped by the Red Sea" (Num. 
33 : 10), and looked over once more to the distant shores 
of Egypt, before they entered the wilderness of Sin 
"which is between Elim and Sinai" (Ex. 16: i). In the 
neighborhood are the hot baths of Pharaoh, where the 
persecutor of Israel literally breathed his last and is still 
boiling in punishment of his sin. This local tradition 
contradicts the other that he was drowned near 'Ayun 
Musa ; but the contradiction does not trouble the minds 
of the Arabs, who believe that what is far distant on 
earth is very near with Allah. Mohammed rode in one 
night on his steed from Mecca to Jerusalem, up to Para- 
dise, and back again to Mecca ! 

We now pass through a succession of dry valleys 



BIBLE LANDS. 



with magnificent rocks and mountains, to the region of 
the turquois mines at Maghara (Wady Igne) which were 
worked by the ancient Egyptians at intervals for about 
seventeen hundred years. Hieroglyphic inscriptions 
mention the names of Pharaohs from Cheops (Chufu), of 
the fourth dynasty, down to Rameses II. ; but the name 
of his successor Menephthah is not to be found, and this 
may be used as another incidental proof that he is the 
Pharaoh of the Exodus (see Chap. X., p. loi). Some years 
ago an enterprising Scotchman, Major Macdonald, whose 
hospitality Dr. Brugsch praises, reopened these mines, 
but without much success, and died in poverty. The 
ruins of his house on a hill are all that remains. 

The next place of interest is Wady Mokatteb, so 
called from the famous Sinaitic inscriptions on the rocks. 
They consist principally of proper names of pilgrims, 
traders, carriers, written mostly in Nabathean, some in 
Coptic, Aramaic, Arabic, and Greek characters, with rude 
figures of men, camels, horses, lizards, shields, arrows, 
crosses. They are found all around Mount Serbal, but 
especially here. Cosmas Indicopleustes, who visited the 
Peninsula a. d. 535, supposed them to be the work of 
the ancient Israelites, miraculously preserved as testimo- 
nies to the truth of the Mosaic narrative ; but they seem 
to be mostly of post-Christian origin, from the second to 
the fourth century. Lenormant traces them to early 
Christians ; Sharpe to Jews from Egypt before and after 
Christ ; Ebers partly to Christians, partly to Nabatheans 
who worshipped the sun and the stars on Serbal and 
other high mountains. The language is understood by 



FROM AYUN MUSA TO MT. SINAI. 167 



some to be Aramaic, by others Arabic. The inscrip- 
tions afford an inviting field for the exercise of linguistic 
and palaeographic skill. They have been carefully exam- 
ined by some German and English scholars, especially by 
Beer (1840),* Ebers (1872),! and Sharpe (1875), J who de- 
ciphered the alphabet, but in a different way. Sharpe 
(the author of " the History of Egypt ") finds in them the 
frequent occurrence of the name "Jao" (Jehovah), the 
words memorial *' and peace-offering," and lamenta- 
tions over the ruined city of Jerusalem and the scattered 
people of God.§ But most of the inscriptions seem to be 



* Inscriptiones veteres, liiteris et lingua huaisque incognitis ad Monte^n 
Sinai magno nuniero servatce. Lips., 1 840. 

t Durch Gosen ztt7n Si7tai, pp. 165 seq. ; 554 seq. 

X Hebrew Inscriptio7ts^from the Valleys between Egypt and Mount Si- 
nai, in their Original Characters. With Twenty Plates. London, 1875. 

§ Here are some specimens : 

"A peace-offering to the city. Accept her that is made to wander, O 
Jehovah.'* 

A peace-offering for her that is trodden to the ground." 
" Lengthen the broken city, the cast-off nation." 





SPECIMENS OF THE LETTERS AND FIGURES. 



i68 



BIBLE LANDS. 



as worthless as the inscriptions of modern scribblers and 
tourists who wish to immortalize their obscurity by dis- 
figuring the works of God or the monuments of man. 
The whole subject needs further investigation. 

Wady Feiran is the most beautiful and interesting 
valley of the Peninsula. It is several miles long with 
many windings, and ends in a natural gate of rocks of 
nature's primitive foundry. It is enclosed by rugged 
cliffs rising over a thousand feet. It contains a large 
and fertile oasis with a fresh fountain and running brook, 
an abundance of date-palms, tamarisks, and thorn-apples, 
small plots of wheat and barley. Several hundred Arabs 
assemble there in harvest. Stanley says that he never 
looked on " scenery at once so grand and so strange," 
and cannot conceive of " a more interesting country for 
a geologist.'* Feiran was once an episcopal see (the an- 
cient Pharan or Paran) and thickly populated by her- 
mits. 

The ruins of a church and convent and village, and 
a few Arab huts are still standing. Innumerable tombs 
and cells on the hills remain as the silent witnesses of 
ancient asceticism. On a monastic tradition of this re- 
gion Professor Ebers has constructed his latest eastern 
novel. Homo sum (1878), which shows that human na- 
ture cannot be entirely destroyed by ascetic self-mortifi- 
cation, and is exposed to the temptation of the devil in 
the lonely desert, as well as in the crowded city. The 
monks embraced the Monophysite and Monothelite her- 
esy, and were rebuked by the orthodox synods and empe- 
rors. Feiran went down as the convent of St Catharine 



FROM 'A YUN MUSA TO MT, SINAL 169 



went up, and Serbal was thrown into the shade by 
Sinai. 

Lepsius, Ebers, Stanley, and all the members of the 
Ordnance Survey Expedition (with the exception of F. 
W. Holland) identify Feiran with Rephidim, where Israel 
fought the Amalekites (Exod. 17:8-16; Num. 33 : 14, 15), 
because they would naturally occupy and defend so fer- 
tile a district against invaders.* But there are two 
objections to this view: i, that at Rephidim there was 
''no water for the people to drink" (Exod. 17 : i), while 
Feiran has an abundance of water ; 2, that it was only a 
day's journey from Sinai (19 : i : '' the same day they came 
into the wilderness of Sinai ") ; while Feiran is nearly two 
days' march fi*om it. Rephidim must therefore be farther 
. southeast and nearer Sinai, unless we regard (with Lep- 
sius and Ebers) Serbal as the true Sinai. Mr. Holland 
places Rephidim twelve miles from Mount Sinai, in a 
gorge El Watiyeh, in the Wady esh Sheikh, where the 
Arabs show a detached rock not unlike an arm-chair in 
^ shape, as "the Seat of Nebi Musa" (the Prophet Moses), 
which Moses may have occupied during the battle with 
the Amakelites.f 

From Wady Feiran the ascent of Mount Serbal is 
made ; it is a hard day's work, but the view from its lofty 
peaks pays for the fatigue; it is the most extensive in 
the Peninsula. The question whether Serbal or Sinai is 

* Lepsius, Reise nach der Halbmsel des Sinai ; W. Palmer, The 
Desert^ etc., pp. 158 seq., and p. 49 ; Ebers in Badeker's Unter-Mgypteny 
pp. 519, 520. But Lepsius and Ebers differ from Stanley and Palmer on 
the Serb^l-Sinai question. See Chap. XVIIL 

t The Becovery of Jerusahnty p. 421 
Bible Lauds. 15 



BIBLE LANDS. 



the true Mount of God, will be discussed in the next 
chapter. 

We now proceed to the Wady Solaf and Wady esh 
Sheikh and encamp at the foot of Nugb Hawa near a 
fountain. Here we are glad to enjoy the rest of the 
second Sabbath in the wilderness and read in the Psalter, 
in the books of Exodus and Numbers, and the descrip- 
tions of Mount Sinai in our guide books. 

The Nugb Hawa or Pass of the Wind, is one of the 
most rugged, precipitous and sublime mountain passes, 
and forms a magnificent portal or propylon to " the Mount 
of God." It is impassable for the baggage-camels, which 
are sent on a detour of six or eight miles through the 
Wady esh Sheikh. It reminded me of St. Gotthard and 
other Alpine passes of Switzerland. 

After severe climbing over granite rocks to the sum- 
mit of this Alpine pass of the desert, the vast Wady Er 
Rahah (Valley of Rest), the fortlike convent of St. Cath- 
arine, and Mount Sinai in all its awful majesty, burst 
upon our sight, and we seem to feel the immediate pres- 
ence of the infinite Jehovah, and to witness one of the 
greatest events in the history of mankind. "Whatever," 
says Dean Stanley, " may have been the scene of the events 
in Exodus, I cannot imagine that any human being could 
pass up that plain and not feel that he was entering a 
place above all others suited for the most august of the 
sights of earth." 



MOUNT SINAL 



171 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

MOUNT SINAI. 

Mount Sinai and the Mount of Beatitudes— The Ter- 
rors of the Law and the Promises of the Gospel- 
Impressions— J ebel Musa and Ras Sufsafeh— The 
True Mount of God— The Claims of Serbal. 

Mount Sinai, or Horeb,* is the chief object of inter- 
est in the Sinaitic Peninsula. A visit to it is an ample 
reward for all the trouble and fatigue of the journey 
through the wilderness. 

From the throne of the Mount of God the purest and 
sublimest code of laws was proclaimed for all ages of the 
world. The Decalogue is a moral miracle greater than 
the physical miracles wrought in Egypt, and is the best 
evidence of the divine legation of Moses — that mighty 
man of God who towers high above ancient and modern 
legislators. But there is One greater than Moses ; and 
the Sermon on the Mount, which contains the Magna 
Charta of Christ's kingdom, is better, as it goes deeper 
and aims higher, than the Ten Commandments. There 
is a poetic fitness in the correspondence between these 
two codes and their locality. Mount Sinai in the frown- 
ing wilderness is the appropriate pulpit for the procla- 
mation of the law which threatens death and damnation 

* The two names are identical. (Compare Exod. 3:1; 18 : 5 ; Deut. 
1:6; 5:2; I Kings 19 : 8.) The one probably designates the whole 
range, the other a particular mountain, as they do at the present day. 



1/2 



BIBLE LANDS. 



to the transgressor ; the Mount of Beatitudes on the 
smiling lakeshore of Galilee is the best pulpit for the gos- 
pel of freedom, which promises life and salvation to the 
humble and penitent that hunger and thirst after right- 
eousness. 

Sinai looks like "a huge altar" of incense. There it 
stands in solemn silence and solitary grandeur, surrounded 
by death and desolation, and reflecting the terrible maj- 
esty and holiness of God. In ascending Jebel Musa and 
Ras Sufsafeh, where Moses communed with the infinite 
Jehovah as no other mortal ever did, I was overwhelmed 
with this idea. Such a sight of terrific grandeur and 
awful majesty I never saw before, nor expect to see again 
in this world. 

At the same time I felt more than ever before the 
contrast between the old and new dispensations : the 
severity and terror of the law, and the sweetness and 
loveliness of the gospel. Blessed be God that we ''are 
not come unto the mount that might be touched and that 
burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and 
tempest, and the sound of the trumpet, .... but unto 
Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the 
heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of 
angels, to the general assembly and church of the first- 
born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge 
of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to 
Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood 
of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of 
Abel." (Heb. 12:18-24.) 

"The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth 



MOUNT SINAI. 



173 



came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). Sinai is in bondage 
with her children ; Jerusalem above is free (Gal. 4 : 22- 
26). But the law was the schoolmaster to lead us to 
Christ by bringing us to a knowledge of sin and a sense 
of the need of redemption. It contained, under a hard 
shell, the sweet kernel of the gospel. God could not 
command his poor fallen creatures to do his will without 
intending to give them the ability and showing them the 
way of salvation from the curse of the law. On the same 
Mount Sinai Jehovah appeared to Elijah, not in the 
raging storm, not in the earthquake, not in the consu- 
ming fire, but in the still, small voice (i Kings 19:11, 
seq.) ; thus foreshadowing the higher revelation of love 
and mercy in the gospel Moses and Elijah, the two 
prophets connected with Horeb, were permitted to meet, 
as the representatives of the covenant of law and prom- 
ise, on the Mount of Transfiguration, and there to behold 
the greater glory of Him who came to fulfil the law and 
the prophets, and to speak with him of that greatest of 
themes — the death which he should suffer at Jerusalem 
for the sins of the world. 

Mount Sinai lies in the midst of a group of moun- 
tains,* but is surrounded by valleys. It rises up precip- 
itously from the bottom of the plain of sand and hard 
gravel to a height of over 2,000 feet, or over 7,000 feet 
from the level of the sea, and covers about two miles in 
length from north to south and one mile in breadth. f It 

* Exod. 30 : 12: "to slay them in the mountains I Kings 19: ii : 
"a great and strong wind rent the mountains and brake in pieces the 
rocks before the Lord." 

t According to the measurements of the English Ordnance Survey, 

15* 



174 



BIBLE LANDS. 



can be touched," and the people of Israel could stand 
"at the nether part of the mount'' (in Wady Er Rahah) 
and listen to the voice of God speaking to them from the 
northern summit.* It consists of two peaks ; the south- 
ern peak is called yebel Musa, or the Mount of Moses , 
the northern peak Ras Sufsofeh, or " the Peak of the Wil- 
low" (probably so called from an old willow-tree beneath 
the summit at the small chapel of the Virgin Mary). The 
former is the traditional, the latter, as I take it, the real spot 
of the giving of the law ; but both together must be inclu- 
ded in the Mount of God," and witnessed the grand and 
overwhelming theophany described by Moses. "There 
were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the 
mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud ; so 
that all the people that were in the camp trembled ; and 
Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the 
Lord descended upon it in fire : and the smoke thereof 
ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount 
quaked greatly" (Exod. 19:16, 18). Then it was that 
" Jehovah talked with Israel face to face in the mount out 
of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick 
darkness, with a great voice," and that Moses stood be- 
tween Jehovah and the people to show them the Ten 
Words of Jehovah, and received them on the two tables 
of stone (Deut. 5 : 2, 4, 5, 22). It was then that the heads 
of the tribes and the elders said unto Moses : " Behold, 
Jehovah our God hath showed us his glory and his great- 

the Convent of St. Catharine is 5,020, Jebel Musa 7,359, Jebel Catharine 
8,526 (Jebel Serbal 6,734) feet above the sea. 

* Compare Exod. k^: 12, 17; Deut. 4:11, 12. 



MOUNT SINAL 



175 



ness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the 
fire : we have seen this day that God doth talk with man, 
and he liveth. Now, therefore, why should we die ? for 
this great fire will consume us : if we hear the voice of 
Jehovah any more, then we shall die. For who is there 
of all flesh that hath heard the voice of the living God 
speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and 
lived (Deut. 5 : 24-26.) 

Guided by a monk of the convent of St. Catharine 
and accompanied by a few Arabs, we first ascend Jebel 
Musa, partly by camel, partly on foot over rough granite 
steps cut by the monks for pilgrims between vast rocks 
of the wildest description. The ascent is comparatively 
easy and takes three hours. From the lofty peak of Je- 
bel Musa the eye looks over the fearful precipice to the 
desolate and narrow Wady Sebaiyeh below,* then to the 
two conical peaks of St. Catharine (which, being higher, 
obstructs the view to the south), and the Gulf of Suez 
and Gulf of 'Akabah in the far distance. No lake, no 
brook, no waterfall, no meadow, no forest meets the 
eye, as from the Swiss mountains ; no sound breaks the 
stillness, unless it be the voice of storm and thunder, 
when heavy clouds gather around the peak and the 
lightning flashes leap down into the darkness. Each 
rock stands out in its rugged outline and distinctive 
shape and color, now yellow, now purple, now black, in 

* i. e. "the Keeper's Valley," in allusion to Moses as "the keeper" 
of Jethro's flocks. But Palmer (Vol. L, p. 137) makes it to mean '*the 
valley of the Brave Youth." The monks inconsistently locate the battle 
of Rephidim in this valley. But Rephidim was a day's journey from the 
wilderness of Sinai (Ex. 19: i, 2). 



176 



BIBLE LANDS, 



the dazzling brightness of the sunlight. A chapel of the 
Holy Trinity, which contains some Greek and Russian 
service-books, is erected on the top ; the ruins of a 
mosque and several spots memorable in the history of 
Moses and Mohammed are shown ; for the place is alike 
sacred to the Christians, the Jews and the Mohamme- 
dans. 

Here on the plateau of Jebel Musa, as already re- 
marked, the monastic tradition locates the scene of legis- 
lation, and it is very natural that it should select the 
highest summ.it as the throne of God from which he 
spoke to Israel. Ritter (who never was there, but care- 
fully examined all reports of travellers), Tischendorf (who 
visited Sinai three times, 1844, 1854, and 1859, but was 
much more interested in the library of the convent than 
in the topography), Laborde and others defend the tradi- 
tion and claim that Wady Sebaiyeh, at the foot of Jebel 
Musa, was sufficiently large to accommodate the army of 
Israel and to enable them to witness the theophany. 
But it did not strike me so as seen from the mountain 
top. Sebaiyeh is narrow, broken, and uneven, and does 
not run up close to the foot of Jebel Musa so that this 
might be touched and surrounded by the people. If 
therefore we can find a better locality in the same Sinai 
group, we nee'd not hesitate to give it the preference and 
to exercise our judgment in discriminating between the 
general truth of the tradition and the error in its minor 
details. This superior locality we find on the northern 
peak of Sinai. 

Coming down from Jebel Musa, we lunch at the 



MOUNT SINAI. 



177 



double chapel of Moses and Elijah * It lies on a plateau 
surrounded by high walls of rock, which afford shelter, 
while the neighboring " Fountain of Elijah" supplies wa- 
ter. Around it are plots of green grass and some tall 
cypresses. Here the two prophets may have rested and 
refreshed themselves during their forty days' retreat. 
Behind the chapel we enter the cave in which Elijah 
lodged and God appeared to him in ''a still small voice" 
(i Kings 19:9, seq.). Whether this vision occurred in this 
particular spot or not, it is one of the most remarkable 
in the history of revelation. Then we descend to " the 
Fountain of Elijah," and wind our way through wild ra- 
vines and gorges till we come to a rude chapel dedicated 
to the Holy Zone of the Virgin Mary," and an old wil- 
low-tree which gave the name to the peak, and from 
which Moses is said to have cut the miraculous rod with 
which he smote the rock of Horeb. 

Then we climb with difficulty and some danger over 
granite blocks to the giddy height of Ras Sufsafeh. 
Here on a projecting rock we rest an hour, looking down 
on the vast plain of Er Rahah and the adjoining Wadys 
of esh Sheikh and Leja, and looking beyond to the am- 
phitheatre of mountains which wall them in, and medita- 
ting over the past which here assumes the character of a 
present overpowering reality. We are lost in amazement 
at the panorama of terrible sublimity of nature, and the 
immeasurable significance of that historic event which :3 

* This is the true name of the chapel (instead of the usual designa- 
tion, "the Chapel of Elijah and Elisha,'' as given by Palmer, Badeker and 
others). So the guiding monk informed me and directed me to the pic- 
tures of Moses and Elijah. Elisha had nothing to do with Horeb. 



1/8 



BIBLE LANDS. 



felt to this day all over the world as far as the Ten Com- 
mandments are known and read. It is difficult to im- 
agine a more solemn and impressive sight. 

We then descend a steep ravine (imagining that we 
follow the track of Moses, Exod. 32:17, 19), over con- 
fused heaps of rocks to the valley Er Rahah, and re- 
turn to our camp near the convent. It was the most 
fatiguing as well as the most interesting day's work of 
mountain climbing I can remember. 

I fully satisfied my mind that Ras Sufsafeh is the 
platform from which the Law was proclaimed. Here all 
the conditions required by the Scripture narrative are 
combined. Moses may have received the Law on the 
higher Jebel Musa, but it must have been proclaimed to 
the people from Ras Sufsafeh, which can be seen from 
every part of the plain below.* For Er Rahah is a smooth 
and gigantic camping ground protected by surround- 
ing mountains, and contains — as has been ascertained 
by actual measurement — two millions of square yards, 
so that the whole people of Israel could find ample room 
and plainly see and hear the man of God on the rocky 
pulpit above.f Dean Stanley relates that "from the 

* Such a distinction between a higher and lower summit of Sinai 
seems to be indicated in the passage Exodus 19 : 20 seq. : "And Jehovali 
came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and Jehovah 
called Moses up to the top of the mount, and Moses went up\ And Je- 
hovah said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people So Moses 

went down unto the people and spake unto them. And God spake all 
these words, saying," etc. 

t " A calculation made by Captain Palmer, from the actual measure- 
ments taken on the spot, proves that the space extending frona the base 
of the mountain to the watershed or crest of the plain is large enough to 
have accommodated the entire host of the Israelites, estimated at two 



MOUNT SINAI. 



179 



highest point of Ras Sufsafeh to its lower peak, a dis- 
tance of about sixty feet, the page of a book, distinctly 
but not loudly read, was perfectly audible ; and every 
remark of the various groups of travellers rose clearly to 
those immediately above them." Descending from that 
mount through a ravine between two peaks, Moses and 
Joshua might have first heard the shouts of the people 
before they saw them dancing round the golden calf. 
(Exod. 32 : 17, 19.) In one word, there is the most com- 
plete adaptation of this locality to all the circumstances 
of the Sinaitic legislation as described by Moses. Tra- 
dition is for Jebel Musa, the Bible for Ras Sufsafeh. But 
after all they form but one mountain (as do the five peaks 
of Serbal), and tradition in this case is at least very near 
the truth. 

The same conclusion was reached by Dr. Robinson, 
who first ascended Ras Sufsafeh (on his visit in 1838), 
and who first pointed out this spot as the true locality,* 

million souls, with an allowance of about a square yard for each individ- 
ual." The Desert of the Exodus, Vol. I., p. 117. Robinson likewise meas- 
ured Er Rahah and found it to be two geographical miles long and from 
one-third to two-thirds of a mile broad, or equivalent to a surface of at 
least one square mile. This space is nearly doubled by the recess on the 
west and by the broad and level area of Wady esh Sheikh on the east, 
which issues at right angles to the plain. Reseanches, Vol. I., p. 95 (ed. of 
1856). 

* See Biblical Researches, Vol. I., pp. 106, 107 : " While the monks 
were here employed in lighting tapers and burning incense, we deter- 
mined to scale the almost inaccessible peak of es-Sufsafeh before us, in 
order to look out upon the plain, and judge for ourselves as to the adapt- 
edness of this part of the mount to the circumstances of the Scriptural his- 
tory. This cliff rises some five hundred feet above the basis ; and the 
distance to the summit is more than half a mile. We first attempted to 
climb the side in a direct course, but found the rock so smooth and pre» 



i8o 



BIBLE LANDS. 



by Dean Stanley, who was there in 1852,* Dr. J. L. Por- 
ter,! and by all the members of the English Ordnance 
Survey Expedition of 1868- 1869, under the lead of Cap- 
tains Wilson and Palmer of the Royal Engineers.^ 

cipitous, that after some falls and more exposures, we were obliged to give 
it up, and clamber upwards along a steep ravine by a more northern and 
circuitous course. From the head of this ravine we were able to climb 
around the face of the northern precipice and reach the top, along the \ 
deep hollows worn in the granite by the weather during the lapse of ages, 
which give to this part, as seen from below, the appearance of architectu- 
ral ornament. 

"The extreme difficulty and even danger of the ascent was well 
rewarded by the prospect that now opened before us. The whole plain 
Er Rahah lay spread out beneath our feet, with the adjacent wadys and 
mountains; while Wady esh Sheikh on the right, and the recess on the 
left, both connected with and opening broadly from Er Rahah, presented 
an area which serves nearly to double that of the plain. Our conviction 
was strengthened, that here, or on some one of the adjacent cliffs, was the 
spot where the Lord 'descended in fire' and proclaimed the law. Here 
lay the plain where the whole congregation might be assembled; here was 
the mount that could be approached and touched, if not forbidden ; and 
here the mountain brow, where alone the lightnings and the thick cloud 
would be visible, and the thunders and the voice of the trump be heard, 
when the Lord *came down in the sight of all the people upon Mount 
Sinai.' We gave ourselves up to the impressions of the awful scene, and 
read, with a feeling that will never be forgotten, the sublime account of the 
transaction, and the commandments there promulgated, in the original 
words as recorded by the great Hebrew legislator. Exod. 19:9-25; 
20 : 1-21." 

* Sinai and Palestine^ p. 76 (Am. ed.) ; "I am sure that if the monks 
of Justinian had fixed the traditional scene on the Ras Sufsafeh, no one 
would for an instant have doubted that this only could be the spot." 

t Handbook for Travellers in Sinai and Palestine^ P* 71 (^d. of 1875): 
" The mountain, the plain, the streamlet, and the whole topography cor- 
respond in every respect to the historical narrative of Moses." 

X See the report of Rev. F. W. Holland, in Recovery of Jerusalem 
(London and New York, 187 1), p. 412, and Professor E. H. Palmer's Des- 
ert of the Exodus (Cambridge and New York, 1871), Part L, pp. 112 seq. 
Holland visited Sinai four times, and Palmer travelled on foot over the 
Sinaitic Peninsula for eleven months. Holland says ; " The members of 




MOUNT SERBAL. 



MOUNT SINAI. 



i8i 



On the other hand, some distinguished scholars still 
plead for Serbal as the Mount of God, especially Lep- 
sius,* Ebers,t and Sharpe.J Let us consider their argu- 
ments. 

1. Serbal was early regarded as a sacred mountain, 
and is identified with Sinai by Eusebius, Jerome, and the 
monk Cosmas, who was there himself in the sixth cen- 
tury. But the tradition of Jebel Musa is stronger, and 
from the age of Justinian well-nigh unanimous.§ 

2. The Sinaitic inscriptions even to the top of Ser- 
bal. If these were really of Hebrew origin, according to 
the theory of Samuel Sharpe, they would indeed prove 
that Serbal was a place of pilgrimage for Jews, though 
by no means from the .time of Moses, for the 179 inscrip- 
tions which he translates make no allusion to the legisla- 
tion and the wanderings, and imply the destruction of Je- 
rusalem. |( Other scholars trace the inscriptions in Wady 
Mokatteb and its neighborhood mostly to Nabathean or 

our Expedition were as unanimous in their conviction that the Law was 
given from Ras Sufsafeh to the Israelites assembled in the plain of Er 
Rahah, as they had been unanimous in rejecting Serbal as the mount of 
giving the Law." 

* Brief e aus JEgypten, etc., 1852; and Reise nach der Halbinsel des 
Sinaiy 1876. 

t Diirch Gosen zum Sinai^ Leipzig, 1872, pp. 380^426. See also Bade- 
ker's ^gypteuy iSyy^ Vol. L, p. 522, where Ebers defends the same view. 
He accounts for the transfer of the sacred tradition from Serbal to Jebel 
Musa by the bad repute of Pharan for heresy in the fifth century. 

t Hebrew Inscriptions from the Valleys betweejt Egypt and Mount Sinai ^ 
London, 1875, P* 4* 

§ Palmer came to the conclusion (p. 5) *'that the claims of Serbal are 
comparatively modern, and that tradition points to the neighborhood of 
that mountain rather as a site of Rephidim than of Sinai, and that the 
true traditional Sinai is Jebel Musa." 

II See above p. 166. 

Bible LsandB. 16 



l82 



BIBLE LANDS. 



heathen origin. It is quite likely that Serbal was sacred 
to the old heathen inhabitants of the desert, as Ritter* 
assumes. In any case, those inscriptions are not conclu- 
sive, as they are found also in Nugb Hawa, round Jebel 
Musa, in the valley Leja, and in remote wadys of the 
Peninsula. 

3. Serbal attracted at an early date a large number 
of Christian pilgrims and anchorites. But this may be 
accounted for by the fertility of Wady Feiran, and the 
large number of caves in the surrounding rocks. 

4. It seems strange that Serbal, if it be not the Mount 
of God, should not be mentioned in the Exodus, since 
the Israelites reached it first. But the omission of any 
mention of the Sinai group would be equally strange. 

5. Wady Feiran, in the immediate neighborhood of 
Serbal, has the requisite water and pasturage for a long 
sojourn of a large army. But the same is true of the 
Sinaitic group, where there are several streams of run- 
ning water and fruitful gardens planted by monks. 

6. Serbal equals Jebel Musa " in massive ruggedness, 
in boldness of feature and outline and although falling 
625 feet beneath the height of Sinai — being only 6,734 
feet above the level of the sea — it looks more imposing 
at a distance. But its five magnificent peaks can be 
seen at once only from one of the neighboring hills, and 
in part from a few spots in Wady Feiran. 

7. The battle of Israel against the Amalekites at 
Rephidim (Exod. 17:8) must have been fought in the 

* Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula^ Vol. I., p. 316 seq. (Gage's 
condensed translation.) 



MOUNT SINAI. 



183 



Wady Feiran, because the Amalekites would not have 
surrendered so fertile an oasis to an invading army with- 
out a struggle ; and Rephidim was near Horeb/' where 
Jethro visited Moses, his son-in-law, after the battle 
(Exod. 17:6 ; 18 : S ; comp. 19: i, 2 and Numb. 33 : 15) ; 
while the traditional Sinai is two days' journey from Fei- 
ran. But, on the other hand, Serbal is only two miles 
from Wady Feiran, too near for a day's journey ; and 
Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to 
drink" (Exod. 17:1), so that Moses smote the rock of 
Horeb (ver. 6), cannot have been in Wady Feiran with 
its fountains and running streams, and must be sought 
somewhere else between Serbal and Sinai.* But even if 
we locate it in Feiran, it is not impossible that the chiefs 
of Israel might have reached the wilderness of Sinai in 
one day by the shorter route over Nugb Hawa, while the 
host took the easier route through Wady esh Sheikh. 

The most conclusive argument, however, against Ser- 
bal as the Mount of God is the entire absence of an open 
and sufficient space where the people could assemble so 
as to stand " under the mountain'' and to touch its "neth- 
er part." This indispensable geographical condition is 
met fully, and met only, in Wady Er Rahah, beneath the 
northern peak of Mount Sinai. However well suited 
Serbal may have been for receiving the law, it was un- 
suited for the giving of the law within the hearing of the 
people ; while Ras Sufsafeh was equally suited for both. 
* See Chap. XVII., p. 168. 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE CONVENT OF ST CATHARIAE. 

Foundation of the Convent— -St. Catharine — Hospi- 
tality—The Church and the Mosque— The Chapel 
of the Burning Bush— The Chamber of Skulls — 
The Library— The Codex Sinaiticus — Dr. Tischen- 
dorf— The Monks and the Arabs— Jebel ed-Deir — 
Excursion to Wady Leja. 

Next to Mount Sinai itself, the Convent of St. Cath- 
arine, at its base, is the most remarkable object of inter- 
est in the Peninsula. It has recently arrested the atten- 
tion of scholars in connection with the most important 
literary discovery of the age, which has proved of great 
service in settling the original text of the New Testament.* 

The Convent of Mount Sinai dates from the Byzan- 
tine Emperor Justinian, the famous legislator and build- 
er, (a. d. 527-565), who reared the magnificent church of 
St. Sophia in Constantinople. He fortified and endowed 
the little church of St. Helena, the mother of Constan- 
tine, on the spot where God spake with Moses." It was 
at first dedicated to the Transfiguration, but afterwards 

* The best accounts of the Convent before the discovery of the Codex 
Sinaiticus we owe to Pococke, Burckhardt, Robinson, and Ritter. Since 
the discovery, Tischendorf (in his Reise in de7t Orient^ Leipz., 1846, and 
Die Sinaibibel ; ihre Entdeckung^ Heraiisgabe und Erwerbung^ 187 1), E. H. 
Palmer {The Desert of the Exodus, 187 1, Part I., pp. 56-78), and Ebers 
{Durch Gosen zum Sinai, 1872, pp. 250-309), have given us the fullest and 
most authentic information. 



THE CONVENT OF ST CATHARINE. 185 



to St. Catharine (Katharina), a famous saint of the Greek 
and Russian Church, the patroness of Christian learning 
and philosophy, after whom several Russian empresses 
were named. According to tradition, based in part on 
Eusebius (who, however, . does not mention her name), 
she was a virgin of noble birth, great wealth, and rare 
scholarship in Alexandria, and suffered martyrdom under 
the persecution of Maximinus (Nov. 25, 313), after resist- 
ing the beastly lusts of the tyrant. The legend adds that 
she was first put upon an engine made of four wheels 
with sharp spikes, but the engine was broken by the 
invisible power of an angel (hence St. Catharine's 
Wheels About five hundred years after her death the 
Christians in Egypt, then groaning under the yoke of 
the Saracens, discovered her remains. Angels trans- 
ported the body (or at least the head) through the air 
from Alexandria to the top of Jebel Catharine; there 
some pious monks discovered it, and carried it to its 
final resting-place in the Convent. The more intelligent 
Greeks say that '^angeUc'' monks carried her bones from 
Alexandria to the Convent of Sinai, that they might en- 
rich it with such an invaluable treasure ; and Alban But- 
ler* adopts this interpretation, adding that monks, "on 
account of their heavenly purity and functions, were an- 
ciently called 'angels.'" The legend of St. Catharine 
has its antecedents in the Egyptian myth of the transfer 
of the corpse of Osiris from the banks of the Nile to 
Mount Lebanon, and in other heathen fables. f It is the 
Greek pendent to the Latin legend of the miraculous 

* Lives of Saints^ sub. Nov. 25. t See Ebers, p. 281 seq. 

16- 



BIBLE LANDS. 



transportation of the house of the Virgin Mary from Naz- 
areth to Loretto, in Italy. A skeptical Protestant may 
take comfort from the fact that, in rejecting the Eastern 
miracle he is supported by the Latins, and in rejecting 
the Western miracle he is supported by the Greeks. 

If the system of monasticism commends itself as a 
benevolent institution anywhere, it is on the Alpine pass- 
es of the Great St. Bernard, the St. Gotthard, and the 
Simplon, and in this " great and terrible wilderness," 
where human enterprise and skill find no inducement 
and reward, and where Christian charity alone can pro- 
vide the necessary shelter and comfort to the weary trav- 
eller. Unlike the monks of Mar Saba, those of St. Cath- 
arine are not " too holy to exercise hospitality," and even 
to admit ladies. Formerly, when they were exposed to 
constant attacks from the wandering Arabs, they drew 
strangers in a basket to the window at the top of the 
wall ; now, since they are under the protection of Russia, 
they admit them through the gate on presentation of a 
permit from the patriarch in Cairo. The reception-room 
is large, and provided with a table, three divans, and a 
bed. The monks at once offer simple refreshments, cool- 
ing water, dark bread, dates, or coffee, and date brandy 
('araki), also little bottles of manna, as a memorial of the 
miraculous food of the Israelites. They have no fixed 
prices, but expect a liberal reward, and after you have 
paid them in solid gold, they demand, before departure, a 
contribution " for the poor Arabs " whom they have to 
support, and they hope to receive backsheesh in addition. 
I could not but smile when I read in their record of vis- 



THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHARINE, 187 



itors the high commendations of travellers, and then 
good-naturedly added my own acknowledgment of hospi- 
tality dearly rewarded. But in such a place and under 
such circumstances the money is cheerfully paid and 
usefully employed. It is only once in a man's lifetime 
that he visits Mount Sinai. It would be unreasonable to 
expect the attention of monks for nothing. They must 
live, as well as other people, and no one is more indebted 
to them than travellers who find shelter under their roof. 
I was glad to find in the book the names of American 
friends — Drs. Chambers, Strong, Ridgaway, and Bart- 
lett — who visited Sinai in 1874, and others. Those of 
Drs. Hitchcock, Smith, and Park, who were there in 1870, 
I looked for in vain. We did not lodge in the Convent, 
but in our tent a little distance below, and had the pleas- 
ure of spending an evening over the tea-table with two 
heroic English ladies (Miss Brocklehurst and Miss Booth), 
whom we also met the next day on the top of Jebel 
Musa. 

The Convent of Mount Sinai is a real oasis in the 
desert, by the traditional sites of the Well of Jethro and 
the Burning Bush. Its gardens — about twenty in num- 
ber, within a circumference of five or ten miles — produce 
vines and vegetables and excellent fruit-trees (apricot, 
peach, fig, pomegranate, olive, pear). The building is 
both a monastery and a fort, encompassed by thick and 
lofty granite walls, with some towers and a variety of 
structures of different ages and styles of architecture, 
without unity and symmetry. It is a curious labyrinth. 
It includes a Byzantine, gorgeously over-decorated church, 



i88 



BIBLE LANDS. 



where Greek m'kss is said four times a day ; the Chapel 
of the Burning Bush, where Jehovah appeared to Moses 
(the bush is gone, the memorial light is kept burning) ; a 
subterranean chamber, containing three thousand skulls 
and bones of departed monks (a horrible sight) ; the cells 
and workshops of the monks ; little courts ; a reception- 
hall and adjoining rooms for travellers and pilgrims ; a 
library ; and, strange to say, a little mosque, with a min- 
aret, to conciliate the good-will of the surrounding Arabs. 
The monks say that they once possessed a charter from 
Mohammed, signed with the impression of his own hand, 
promising them perpetual protection and immunity. The 
church contains a beautiful mosaic picture of the Trans- 
figuration, the portraits of the Emperor Justinian and 
his wife Theodora, and the relics of St. Catharine, in 
a costly sarcophagus presented by the Czar of Russia. 
It is at this shrine and in the Chapel of the Burning Bush 
that pious pilgrims, especially from Russia, are absorbed 
in devotion, and feel amply rewarded for their weary 
marches over the burning sand of the desert. 

The library of the convent has considerable interest 
for scholars. It is little used, but put in better order 
since Tischendorf s last visit, in 1859. contains several 
hundred written and printed volumes, mostly in the 
Greek, some in the Arabic, some in the Russian lan- 
guage, many of them worm-eaten, soiled, and torn.* 

* Tischendorf counted five hundred manuscripts. Ebers sought in 
vain for Coptic manuscripts, but thinks that some books in the old sacred 
Slavonic dialect are worthy of examination for comparative philology. 
Palmer began to make a catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts, but was 
not allowed to finish it. 



THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHARINE, 189. 



Those I hastily examined are ascetic and homiletic trea- 
tises of Greek fathers. The Codex Aureus, an Evange- 
listary, once in the archbishop's room, is now in the 
church. It is one of the most beautiful copies of the 
Four Gospels, written in gold uncial letters, in double 
columns, with illuminated pictures of the Saviour, the 
Virgin, and the four evangelists. It is assigned to the 
eighth century, and hence not of much critical value. 
Of modern books, I saw in the library a copy of the fac- 
simile edition, in four volumes, of the Codex Sinaiticus, 
presented by the Emperor of Russia, Champollion's Pic- 
torial Egypt (a gift of the French government), and a 
copy of Tischendorf's edition of the Septuagint (probably 
presented by him). A bust of the present Khedive of 
Egypt and a collection of photographic views were also 
on a table. 

Twenty years ago this library contained a literary 
treasure of inestimable value, the most complete and 
probably the most ancient copy of the whole Greek 
Bible, with some other valuable documents (the Greek 
Epistle of Barnabas and a fragment of the Greek Her- 
mas). It is written on parchment in large uncial letters, 
in four columns, and dates from the middle of the fourth 
century. The monks were ignorant of its very existence. 
It took a German scholar to find it out and to rescue it 
from probable ruin. Dr. Tischendorf has told the roman- 
tic story of his discovery of the " Codex Sinaiticus^" on 
three successive visits : first in 1844, when he found, in a 
basket full of papers destined for the oven of the convent, 
forty-three leaves of the Septuagint ; then in 1853, when 



BIBLE LANDS, 



he accomplished nothing; and finally, in February, 18.59, 
when, under the patronage of the Russian Czar, the pro- 
tector of the Eastern Church, he obtained the priceless 
treasure. He was permitted to carry it to Cairo, and to 
copy it there (working day and night, with the help of 
Coptic scribes) ; and ultimately secured it as a tribute of 
duty and gratitude to the Czar Alexander 11. I heard 
the story twice from his own lips, in his study at Leipzig, 
and when we spent a few days together at Friedrichs- 
hafen. He was the happiest theologian I ever knew. 
He never got over the intense satisfaction and delight 
of the discovery which would immortalize a man of far 
less learning and merit than Tischendorf. His indom- 
itable perseverance in the search and subsequent publi- 
cation (in three forms) is almost without a parallel in the 
history of literature. He lived long enough (till 1874) to 
utilize this and all other important sources of the text in 
the critical apparatus of the eighth edition of his large 
Greek Testament, in two volumes ; but the Prolegomena, 
which were to form a separate volume, are left to a young 
American scholar in Leipzig (Dr. Gregory) to elaborate 
from his materials and other contributions. 

The Sinai Bible is now in possession of the Imperial 
Library at St. Petersburg. Thus the Russo-Greek 
Church possesses Codex Aleph (Sinaiticus) ; the Roman 
Church, Codex B (Vaticanus) ; the French Church, Co- 
dex C (of Ephraem the Syrian) ; the Anglican Church, 
Codex A (Alexandrinus, in the British Museum) and 
Codex D (in Cambridge) ; while Protestant Germany has 
none of the most famous and valuable uncial manu- 



THE CONVENT OF ST CATHARINE, igr 



scripts, but has done more than any other nation towards 
utilizing all of them for the cause of Biblical learning. 

The monks feel very sore at the loss of this their 
greatest literary treasure. They positively assert that 
it was only loaned to Tischendorf, to copy it, in Cairo, 
and that it was finally stolen from them. They deny 
that the emperor of Russia ever paid them a copper for 
it. On my remonstrance the prior admitted that the 
emperor offered to pay, but that they refused it, and de- 
manded the manuscript instead, though in vain. I dis- 
tinctly recollect that Prof. Tischendorf, as he informed 
me, recommended to the Czar to give the Convent a 
very large sum for the book, besides the new costly 
shrine for the bones of St. Catharine ; and it seems in- 
credible that no reparation should have been made for 
such a loss, which was a great gain to the Christian 
world ; for these ignorant monks could never have made 
use of it, and Biblical scholars could not travel to Mount 
Sinai to examine it. Moreover, Tischendorf showed me 
two Greek letters of the Archbishop Calistratos, full of 
Oriental compliments and expressions of gratitude to the 
German professor, and stating that the Codex Sinaiticus 
was presented to his majesty the Czar, the Autocrat of 
all the Russians, as a testimony of eternal devotion.* 

It is not impossible that patient research in the library 
may result in some other literary discovery, although 
of far inferior importance. It would be worth while for 

* 71 nepL^vvfiog avTTj (3l8?iog' kdcoprjdrj eig evSei^cv rrjg aidiov y[j,G)v kqc tov 
2tvd evyvQuoavvTig, See extracts from these letters in Ebers, pp. 375, 
376. 



192 



BIBLE LANDS. 



a Biblical and patristic scholar to spend some weeks in 
the Convent for the purpose. But their experience with 
Tischendorf has made the monks very cautious and sus- 
picious. 

There are at present only thirty monks at the Con- 
vent, which is said to be very wealthy. They seem to 
enjoy good health in this pure, dry, desert air, and attain 
to an old age. They lead a simple, temperate, idle, mo- 
notonous, and stupid life. They are vegetarians, and 
drink no wine, but are said to indulge occasionally in 
date-brandy, which is distilled behind the kitchen. They 
speak Arabic and Greek. One only spoke Italian. He 
is an intelligent and friendly person, who guided us round 
and acted as interpreter with the others. He hails from 
Corinth. Another conducted us on our ascent to Jebel 
Musa and Ras Sufsafeh, and in the excursion to Wady 
Leja ; he was kind and good-natured, but as he spoke 
only Greek and Arabic, we could not easily converse with 
him. He seemed delighted when we repeated the beat- 
itudes from the Sermon on the Mount. The other monks 
make no favorable impression as to intelligence or knowl- 
edge. Some are sent there for punishment. Dean Stan- 
ley and Professor Palmer censure them for not having 
converted a single Arab, or made a single contribution to 
the knowledge of the geography, the geology, or the his- 
tory of a country which has been committed to their 
charge for thirteen centuries. I asked a monk why they 
did not at least attempt to educate and civilize the Arabs, 
who are their serfs, if they dare not Christianize them, 
under the Turkish government. He replied : " These 



THE CONVENT OF ST CATHARINE, 193 



Arabs are camels, who only care for the bread of the 
Convent." Still, we should never ungratefully forget that 
the Convent of St. Catharine has preserved for the Chris- 
tian world the only complete uncial manuscript of the 
Holy Scriptures. 

Before we leave Mount Sinai we will add a brief notice 
of the surroundings. They are replete with silly legends 
which disturb the gravity of a Protestant traveller, and 
yet show the deep local impression of the Mosaic events. 

The Convent lies between Jebel Musa and J^edel ed 
Deir, or the Mount of the Convent." Dean Stanley 
ascended it, and found there on the highest level a natu- 
ral basin thickly covered with shrubs of myrrh, which he 
thought best suited for the feeding of Jethro*s flocks in 
the seclusion of the mountain. 

Farther north lies Jebel Sona, or Seneh, which retains 
the old Scripture name, and looks right into Er Rahah 
and Wady esh Sheikh, and might set up a plausible rival 
claim against Ras Sufsafeh, but it is far less impo- 
sing. 

We spent half a day in an excursion to Wady Leja 
and Deir el-ArbaHn, i. e., " the Convent of the Forty," 
namely, Martyrs." Starting from our camp below the 
Convent, we pass the Hill of Aaron, an elevation on 
which the golden calf was erected ; then a hole in the 
rock on the plain, which is pointed out as the Mould of 
the Calf, although it has no more resemblance to a calf 
than to any other animal ; next a piece of rock where the 
Tables of the Law were broken, and a hole in which they 
were buried. Then we turn from Er Rahah into the 

Bible LcPds. 17 



194 



BIBLE LANDS. 



narrow Wady Leja.* It has an abundance of water, and 
was once filled with hermits. Many Sinaitic inscriptions 
are found on the rocks. We soon come to " the Rock of 
Llorebl' which Moses smote with his rod and made a 
fountain to refresh the murmuring Israelites (Exod. 
17:6). The Arabs call it Hagar Musa, "the Stone of 
Moses."t It is an isolated block of red granite, with 
twelve crevices on each side, as so many fountains for 
the twelve tribes, but yields not a drop of water now. It 
followed the Israelites through the wilderness and re- 
turned to its place ! It is thus identified with " the spir- 
itual rock" spoken of by Paul, who means Christ (i Cor. 
10 :4). So the credulous Greek monk informed us with- 
out an apparent doubt. The place is also shown where 
the earth opened its mouth to swallow up Korah, Da- 
than, and Abiram, for their rebellion against Moses and 
Aaron (Numb. 16: 31-33). This is a palpable anachro- 
nism, for the rebellion of Korah occurred in Kadesh in 
the wilderness of Paran, long after the departure of Is- 
rael from Sinai (Numb. 13 : 26). 

About twenty minutes farther south is the convent el- 
ArbaHn (or, as our guide called it, the reGGapuKovra fidprvpeg). 
It is dedicated to the forty monks who were cruelly mur- 
dered by a robber band of heathen Arabs in the year 
373 or 400.J In the chapel are pictures of Christ, the 

* Probably from the Arab tradition which mentions Safuzijah (Zip- 
pora) and Lz^a as the two daughters of Jethro. Ebers, pp. 336 and 580. 

t See a picture of it in De Laborde's Voyage de V Arable Petree^ p. 
68, and a description, in Ebers, p. 337. 

X The tradition rests on good foundation, the reports of Amonius 
and Nilus as eye-witnesses. See the extract from Nilus in Ebers, p. 
345- 



THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHARINE. 195. 



Virgin, St. Michael, and the Forty Martyrs. The build- 
ing is now deserted, but undergoing repairs by an Ital- 
ian, who kindly offered us coffee. In the neighborhood 
are five orchards and olive-groves, with an abundance 
of fresh water. The fruit of the trees is said to be 
excellent. From Wady Leja the ascent of Mount Cath- 
arine, the highest in the Peninsula (8,526 feet), is made ; 
it is toilsome, but is amply rewarded by a grand panora- 
ma over this world of desolation. 



196 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER XX. 

FROM MOUNT SINAI TO HEBRON. 

The Testimony of the Wilderness to the Truth of 
the Bible — The Itinerary of the Israelites— The 
Desert of the Wanderings— The Wady esh Sheikh 
— A Mohammedan Saint— Last Sight of Serbal — 
Crossing Jebel Et Tih — Nakhl — A Bedawin Fight 
— Approaching the Holy Land— Gaza— Samson — 
The Greek Church- Protestant Mission Schools 
—From Gaza to Hebron. 

A VISIT to the Sinaitic Peninsula goes far to strength- 
en one's faith in the truthfulness of the Mosaic narrative 
against the attacks of skeptical critics who have never 
been there. A recent explorer, who accompanied the 
English Ordnance Survey Expedition, closes his account 
with the statement that '*not a single member of the 
expedition returned home without feeling more firmly 
convinced than ever of the truth of that sacred history 
which he found illustrated and confirmed by the natural 
features of the Desert. The mountains and valleys, the 
very rocks, barren and sun-scorched as they now are, 
seem to furnish evidences which none who behold them 
can gainsay, that this was ^that great and terrible wil- 
derness' through which Moses, under God's direction, 
led his people."* 

From 'Ayim Musa to Mount Sinai we can verify the 
account of Exodus and the invaluable itinerary of the 

* Rev. T. W. Holland, in The Recovery of Jerttsalem^ p. 429. 



FROM MT. SINAI TO HEBRON, 197 

thirty-third chapter of Numbers in every essential fea- 
ture. We find support and illustration in the striking 
correspondence of the present localities with the Biblical 
descriptions and the character of the events which took 
place there. The wild Arab traditions, too, are full of 
recollections of the great Nebi Musa, and testify to the 
indelible impression which the leader of Israel made on 
the inhabitants of the Peninsula and their descendants 
to this day.* 

We can go a little farther, to Hazeroth, the second 
permanent encampment beyond Sinai. It may without 
difficulty be identified with 'Ain Hudherah. Professor 
von Schubert, and afterwards Dean Stanley, saw, before 
arriving at Hudherah, in the evening and morning, the 
flight of innumerable large, red-legged cranes three feet 
high, with black and white wings, literally darkening 
the sky, in striking confirmation of the incident men- 
tioned in Numb. 11:31: " And there went forth a wind 
from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea and let 
them fall by the camp." We can also follow the Israelites 
at the end of their journey when they moved southward 
towards the Gulf of 'Akabah. We can identify Ezion- 
Geber {i. the giant's backbone). Mount Hor, Edom, 
and Moab, As to Kadesh, where Israel " abode many 
days" (Deut. i :46), where Miriam died (Numb. 20: i), 
and whence the spies were sent to Canaan (Numb. 13:3, 
26; 32:8), there is a difference of opinion; Robinson 
and Porter locate it in 'Ain el Weibeh in the neighbor- 

* On the Mohammedan history of the Exodus, compare the Appen- 
dix of Palmer, II., pp. 533 seq. 

17* 



BIBLE LANDS. 



hood of the passes of Sufkah and Figreh, immediately 
below the southern border of Palestine ; Stanley in or 
near Petra ; Rowlands and Palmer at 'Ain Gadis on the 
border of the Negeb in the desert of Et Tih, about fifty 
miles south of Beersheba and forty miles west of *Ain el 
Weibeh. 

The thirty-eight years which lie between the first and 
the last years of Israel's sojourn in the Peninsula are 
devoid of mighty events such as took place in the begin- 
ning and the end. It was a period of punishment and 
uncertain wanderings, a record of murmurings and sor- 
rows. The rebellion of Korah, the death of Miriam, the 
second miracle of striking the rock, and the sin of Moses 
which excluded even him and Aaron from the promised 
land, are almost the only incidents during this meagre 
period. It is impossible as yet to identify all the camp- 
ing-stations mentioned in Numb. 33 : 17-35, again in 
ver. 41-48, except Mount Hor, Edom, and Moab. Rit- 
ter, who mastered every source of information down tc 
his time, says that the course of the Israelites, after they 
had received the law, is to us terra incognita, Stanley 
speaks in a similar way. 

Since that time E. H. Palmer, accompanied by C. F. 
Tyrwhitt Drake, in behalf of the Palestine Exploration 
Fund, has wandered on foot over the greater portion of 
the Desert Et Tih, Idumsea, and Moab (i 869-1 870), and 
published the results of his researches, with valuable 
maps and illustrations, in the second part of The Desert 
of the Exodus. He lays much stress on his identification 
of Kadesh with *Ain Gadis, as forming the key to the 



FROM MT, SINAI TO HEBRON. 199 



movements of the Israelites during their wanderings. 
But Kadesh must be sought on the uttermost {i. e. the 
western) border" of Edom (Num. 20: 14, 16) and not very 
far from Mount Hor (ver. 22 ; 33:37), unless we distin- 
guish (with Reland) two places of that name, one near 
Edom, in the wilderness of Zin, and one with the affix 
''Barnea" (Numb. 32:8; Deut. 2:14), in the northern 
plateau of Et Tih. 

The Badiet Et Tih, i. e.y the Desert of the Wander- 
ings," indicates by its name that it was the scene of the 
wanderings of Israel, and identical with " the wilderness 
of Paran" (Num. 10: 12 ; 12:26; Deut. i : i). It is em- 
phatically "that great and terrible wilderness" of which 
Moses speaks, Deut. i : 19. Its dreary monotony corre- 
sponds to the comparative emptiness of that long period of 
punishment, when the whole generation of those who had 
emigrated from Egypt and witnessed the great miracles 
in the western and southern part of the Peninsula, died 
away ; as we read in the Prayer of Moses : " We are con- 
sumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. 
Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins 
in the light of thy countenance. For all our days are 
passed away in thy wrath : we spend our years as a tale 
that is told " (Psa. 90 : 7-9). 

The Desert Et Tih is a vast and irregular limestone 
plateau, which extends along the southern boundary of 
Palestine from Gaza and the Mediterranean in the west 
to the Dead Sea in the east, and projects southward like 
a wedge into the Sinaitic Peninsula, as this itself projects 
into the Red Sea. It borders in the north on what is 



200 



BIBLE LANDS, 



called the Negeb," or " South Country " of the Bible 
{i. e.y the country south of Palestine), with the pastures 
of Gerar (Gen. lo : 19 ; 20 : i), where the patriarchs pas- 
tured their flocks. It is walled in on the south by a 
chain of mountains of the same name. The Desert Et 
Tih is dry and barren, but covered more or less with 
parched herbage. It is a pasture-land, as distinguished 
from an agricultural country, and becomes more fertile 
as it approaches Palestine. It has no traces of former 
habitation and cultivation, like the Serbal and Sinai re- 
gion, but occasional sepulchral stone circles, which re- 
semble the Druid monuments in England and Scotland. 
It was no doubt in a far better condition at the time of 
the patriarchs and Moses than ever since. 

We shall now briefly describe our northern route 
from Sinai to Nakhl and Hebron through this dreary 
desert. It would be far more interesting to take the 
longer route to 'Akabah and Petra if the war among the 
Bedawin would allow it. 

We leave the camp below the Convent of Sinai, and 
pass through the long Wady esh Sheikh, the king of the 
Wadys, covered with shrubs and stunted trees. It is 
called after the Sheikh Salih (Nebi Salih), a Mohamme- 
dan saint mentioned in the Koran as a venerable and 
eloquent patriarch. A rude monument, or Well, is erected 
to him at the dividing line of the road to 'Akabah. Here 
the Towarah Bedawin, who revere him as their ancestor, 
perform their devotions. In May they keep a festival, 
which is the great national event of the year, and con- 
sists of dromedary races, the sacrifice of sheep, and feast- 



FROM MT, SINAI TO HEBRON. 201 



ing, and winds up with an ascent of Jebel Musa and an 
offering to the Prophet Moses.* 

On the next day we come once more in sight of the 
majestic Serbal. In crossing Nukber-Rakineh, a high 
and rugged pass of Jebel Et Tih, we had to march against 
a fearful hurricane, which several times blew down the 
poor baggage-camels. We found no shelter or resting- 
place, and wondered how we got to the other side of the 
mountain to the fountain Abu Nuteighineh and into the 
Wady El Arish. 

About half way from Sinai to Gaza and half way be- 
tween Suez and 'Akabah is Nakhl (or Nukhl), an Egyp- 
tian fort, manned by about thirty savage-looking soldiers, 
for the protection of the Mecca pilgrims. It is provided 
with a large cistern, and surrounded by a number of 
Arab huts for the wives and children of the soldiers. 
The governor received us very politely, took us over the 
fort, and treated us to figs, raisins, and the inevitable 
coffee and cigarette. His best room is furnished with 
carpets, two chairs, and a few cushions. As soon as we 
entered, his wife ran out as fast as she could. It is diffi- 
cult to imagine a more dreary place for residence than 
on this dead level of sand and gravel, without an object 
for the eye to rest upon. 

At Nakhl the territory of the Towarah Bedawin 
ceases, and that of the more savage Teyahah begins. 
Palmer represents them from his experience as a set of 
robbers, who pursue plundering with a profound feelins: 

* See an account in Palmer's The Desej't of the Exodus ^ I., 202-204, 
and Badeker's ^gypten^ L, 1544. 



202 



BIBLE LANDS. 



of conscious rectitude and respectability, like those Chal- 
deans who fell upon the camels of Job, carried them 
away, and slew his servants with the edge of the sword 
(Job I : 17). They were at war with the neighboring 
tribes of the Terabin and Haiwat, and two hundred were 
reported to have been killed or wounded on both sides. 
These petty fights were of far greater interest to the peo- 
ple in the desert than the impending war between Russia 
and Turkey. The sheikh, a commanding-looking man, 
diverted us from our intended route to Beersheba and 
Hebron (although we were willing to run the risk of 
danger), and made us pay an extravagant sum {£17, or 
$85) for permission to pass through his territory with- 
out him. The governor, who listened to our negotia- 
tions over the supper-table, made many polite bows, but 
did nothing whatever to protect us against the imposi- 
tion. Perhaps he had a share in the plunder. We 
learned that on the previous day a larger party of Eng- 
lish travellers, consisting of Messrs. Jansen of Chistle- 
hurst, Murray Anderson, Rev. Mr. Selwyn, and others, 
were imposed upon in the same way. It is but due, 
however, to Mr. Cook, under whose protection we trav- 
elled, to say that his agent in Jerusalem (Mr. Floyd) read- 
ily refunded the money. 

After five days of weary marches from Nakhl we en- 
camped on the rich domain of the Philistines, within a 
few miles from Gaza, and spent there our last Sabbath 
in the wilderness. The dragoman in the mean time rode 
to Gaza and telegraphed to Jerusalem for horses. To be 
even within the reach of a telegraph is like passing from 



FROM MT, SINAI TO HEBROX. 203 

midnight to the light of day ; but it is almost the only 
sign of modern civilization in Turkish dominions. We 
were agreeably surprised in camp by a visit from some 
of the English party above alluded to, who met our drag- 
oman at Gaza and returned with him. They informed 
us of their adventures in the wilderness, their disappoint- 
ment in not seeing Petra, although they had paid a por- 
tion of the extra backsheesh, and of their indignation at 
the conduct of the sheikh at Nakhl, They told us, to 
our surprise, that they and we were reported to be killed 
or imprisoned by the Bedawin, and that Mr. Cook's agent 
had requested the Pasha of Jerusalem to send a force 
after us. These false reports arose from the wars among 
various tribes at the time. But all we saw of the war 
was some armed Bedawin going to and returning from 
the scene of action. 

We are now on the very borders of the Holy Land, 
which once was flowing with milk and honey. The 
heart beats higher and higher in anxious expectation, 
and we greet with joy the multiplying indications of 
fertility and industry. We part with regret from our 
faithful Towarah Arabs who had accompanied us on the 
whole journey from Suez, but we feel happy and thank- 
ful for our deliverance from the barren desert. 

Gaza is an Arab town of about 15,000 inhabitants. 
It lies in a very fertile region, two miles from the sea- 
shore. It is the place where Samson, the Hercules of 
Jewish history, took his last revenge on the Philistines. 
Two pillars of granite, which he is said to have pulled 
down, destroying himself and 3^000 enemies assembled 



204 



BIBLE LANDS, 



at a feast, are still shown. The Moslems are proud of 
him, and claim him as one of their own faith, although 
he lived two thousand years before Mohammed. We saw 
the mosque, which is an old Christian church, the Greek 
church and school, and — what interested us most — three 
Protestant schools for boys and girls, which Mr. W. 
Pritchett, an aged and palsied Englishman, established 
from pure Christian benevolence. The old gentleman 
could not speak a word without trembling all over, and 
yet he kept no servant. His teachers are two ladies 
from the schools of the late Mrs. Thomson in Beirut, and 
Salih Nassar, a pupil of the noble Dr. Calhoun of Mt. Leb- 
anon, who died in America in Dec, 1876; he spoke of 
his teacher in most grateful terms, and was moved to tears 
when I informed him of his death. The Arab children 
delighted us with singing " Rock of ages cleft for me." 
At Gaza we also saw, in the telegraph-office kept by an 
Englishman, the Weekly London Times," which was 
quite a luxury after a month's hunger for news. 

As soon as our horses and mules arrived we started 
for Beit Jibrin (the ancient Eleutheropolis), where we 
again met with our English friends in a pleasant evening 
chat, and on the next day for Hebron. We were obliged 
to make a detour to avoid the warring Bedawin. We 
passed over rolling wheat-fields and stony hills, and saw 
ploughs worked by cows and camels. The hill-country 
between Beit Jibrin and Hebron is naturally very beau- 
tiful and fertile, but needs running brooks and trees. A 
ride of two days brought us from Gaza to Hebron. 



THIRD PART. 

THE 

Holy Land, 



13 




I 



THIRD I^A.RT. 



The Holy Land. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

HEBRON. 

First Impressions of Palestine — Scripture Remi- 
niscences— Abraliam's Oak— Hebron, the City of 
Abraham and David — The Great Mosque — The 
Machpelah — Recent Disclosures — Mussulman 
Fanaticism— An Assault and a Satisfaction— The 
Hills of Judah— Solomon's Pools— From Hebron 
to Jerusalem. 

Coming from a forty years' wandering in the wilder- 
ness, Palestine was indeed to the Israelites a land of 
promise flowing with milk and honey. Though fearfully 
desolate and neglected now, we can even yet everywhere 
see the traces of its former prosperity and its capacities 
for a future resurrection under a better government and 
with a better population. Its climate and natural fertil- 
ity are unsurpassed ; its hills and valleys make it a beau- 
tiful country, a sort of Switzerland or Wales of the East ; 
while its historical significance, as the classical soil of 
revelation and the birthplace of the only true and universal 



208 



BIBLE LANDS. 



religion, raises it above the most highly favored coun- 
tries of the globe. The disproportion of its small size to 
its historical greatness reminds one of Greece. Its length 
from Beersheba in the south to Dan in the north is only 
about one hundred and eighty miles, its breadth from the 
Jordan to the sea not much more than fifty miles ; and 
yet this little country has done more for the religious and 
moral, as Greece has done more for the intellectual, prog- 
ress of mankind than the vast empires of Assyria, Babylo- 
nia, Persia, and Rome. The isolation of Palestine from 
idolatrous countries by sea and desert was favorable to 
the development of the pure monotheistic religion ; while 
its central location between three continents looked to 
the universal destination and spread of the gospel which 
was born there. 

My first impressions in reaching Palestine from the 
Desert and in travelling on its southern border from 
Gaza to Hebron may be briefly summed up in these 
points : (i) the natural beauty and fertility of the country ; 
(2) the Swiss-like character of the landscape f (3) the 
abundance of variegated wild flowers and of grain fields ; 
(4) the absence of rivers and trees ; (5) the want of roads, 
carriages, wagons, wheelbarrows, and every trace of a 
good government and enterprising population ; (6) the 
semi-barbarous character and condition of the inhabitants, 
both Moslems and nominal Christians ; (7) the richness of 
Scripture reminiscences and illustrations, which multiply 

* Miss Martineau and Dean Stanley, hailing from England, were 
struck " by the Western, almost the English, character of the scenery," 
and were reminded of the Lowlands of Scotland and Wales. 



HEBRON: THE MOSQUE AND PART OF THE TOWN. 





GETHSEMANE, AND MOUNT OF OLIVES. 



HEBRON. 



209 



as we proceed. The ruins of cities on the hills remind 
us of the " city that is set on a hill and cannot be hid " 
(Matt. 5 : 14). The luxuriant vineyards and fig-trees at 
Hebron recall the grapes, pomegranates, and figs which 
the spies brought from Hebron and the valley or the 
brook of Eshcol to the camp of Israel in Kadesh-Bar- 
nea (Numb. 13 : 22-25) \ as we see the walls around 
the vineyards and the watch-towers in the corner for the 
guard, we have a striking illustration of the parable of 
the vineyard (Matt. 21 : 33). The Land is a commentary 
on the Book. 

Before we reach Hebron coming from Gaza, we turn 
off the main road to see the famous Oak (or Terebinth) 
OF Abraham, about two miles west of the city. It has 
often been photographed. It is a truly majestic and ven- 
erable tree, more venerable than any in the world except 
the olive-trees of Gethsemane. Its trunk measures thirty- 
two feet in circumference. Its crown divides into four 
colossal branches spread out like wings. It is now sur- 
rounded by a stone wall and owned by the Russians, who 
bought the surrounding field and built a fine hospice on 
the hill above. Already in the time of Josephus there 
was shown, six furlongs from the city, " a very large turpen- 
tine-tree, which has continued ever since the creation of 
the world."* Here "in the plains" (or rather, "the oaks") 
"of Mamre" father Abraham courteously received and 
hospitably entertained the three mysterious visitors " un- 
der the tree," in front of the tent, and was informed of 

* See Bello Jtid, Book IV., chap. 9, § 7. Josephus, however, does not 
connect it expressly with Abraham. 

18* 



210 



BIBLE LANDS. 



the future birth of Isaac, the son of promise (Genesis 
1 8 : 2-9). From here he accompanied the strangers to a 
hill from which he could look upon Sodom and Gomor. 
rah, and interceded with the Lord for the doomed cities, 
but in vain, because 'not even ten righteous persons could 
be found there (23-33). And early in the morning, coming 
to the place where he stood before the Lord, ''he looked 
toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of 
the plain, and beheld, and lo, the smoke of the country 
went up as the smoke of a furnace" (Gen. 19 : 27, 28). 

Hebron is mentioned about forty times in the Old 
Testament, but nowhere in the New. Like Damascus, 
it carries us back to the days of Abraham, as one of the 
most ancient cities of the world. It was built seven years 
before Zoan or Tanis, the capital of the Shepherd Kings 
in Egypt (Numb. 13:22). It is the city of Abraham, 
" the friend of God " (Jas. 2 : 23), and in honor of him the 
Arabs call it El Kkulili.e./'th^ Friend'^of Allah). Here 
he built an altar unto the Lord, and walked and com- 
muned with him (Gen. 13:18). Here he bought from 
Ephron the Hittite the cave and field of Machpelah, as 
the final resting-place for his family. Here the patri- 
archs spent a large part of their lives. Here David 
reigned over Judah seven years and six months before he 
became sovereign of the whole land and removed his res- 
idence to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 5 : 5). Here is the pool over 
which he hanged up the murderers of his rival Ishbo- 
sheth (2 Sam. 4:12). Here he no doubt composed some 
of his psalms which still kindle the devotions of the peo- 
ple of God all over the world. Hebron is one of the four 



HEBROK 



211 



holy cities of Islam (with Mecca, Medinah, and Jerusa- 
lem) and of Judaism (with Jerusalem, Safed, and Tibe- 
rias). It is situated at the foot of a hill in a well-watered 
and fertile valley, usually supposed to be the Valley of 
Eshcol (the Valley of Grapes), unless this is to be sought 
further south near Beersheba.* It is surrounded by vine- 
yards, olive groves, almond, apricot, and fig trees. It lies 
3,029 feet above the sea, about twenty miles or seven 
hours' ride south of Jerusalem. It passed into the pos- 
session of Islam in the seventh century. During the 
Crusades it was for a short time (1167 to 1187) the seat 
of a Latin bishopric, but after the disastrous defeat of the 
Crusaders at Tiberias in 11 87 it fell into the hands of 
Saladin, and has since been a hot-bed of Mohammedan 
insolence and fanaticism. Its eight or ten thousand in- 
habitants are all Moslems, with the exception of five hun- 
dred Jews. There is not a single Christian family there. 
The inhabitants manufacture water-skins from goats' 
hides, lamps, and colored glass rings for female orna- 
ments. As the Mohammedans drink no wine, they dry 
the grapes and sell large quantities of raisins, or they boil 
the juice into debs, a kind of thick grape molasses, which 

* See Numb. 13:22-25; 32:9; Deut. i 124. It is uncertain whether 
the valley and the brook of Eshcol (^^^^'N, a bunch, a cluster, especially of 
grapes) derived the name from Eshcol, the brother of Mamre the Amo- 
rite, and one of the four chieftains who accompanied Abraham in his pur- 
suit of the four robber-kings (Gen. 14: 13, 14), or whether he derived it 
from the valley. It certainly is in the neighborhood of Hebron. Rob- 
inson says, " This valley is generally assumed to be the Eshcol of the Old 
Testament, whence the spies brought back the cluster of grapes to Kadesh; 
and apparently not without reason. The character of its fruit still corre- 
sponds to its ancient celebrity, and pomegranates and figs, as well as apri- 
cots, quinces, and the like, still grow there in abundance." 



212 



BIBLE LANDS. 



is often mentioned in the Bible under the kindred name 
of debask. The houses are built of stone, and many have 
domes as at Jerusalem. 

The most important building is the Great Mosque 
(Haram), a massive and imposing but gloomy structure, 
about 200 feet long by 150 (according to Tristram, 115) 
feet wide, and upwards of 50 feet high, with two minarets. 
It is surrounded by the dwellings of dervishes and the 
forty hereditary guardians of the mosque. The high wall 
is supposed to date from the time of David or Solomon. 
The mosque itself was probably a Byzantine church, like 
the Great Mosque of Damascus, the Mosque of Omar in 
Jerusalem, and St. Sophia in Constantinople. It owns 
some of the best lands in Philistia and in the plains of 
Sharon. 

But the object of greatest interest in this mosque 
is concealed beneath its pavement. It is " the double 
cave," or Machpelah, the oldest known burial-place in 
the world. Here the three patriarchs and their wives 
(except Rachel, who is buried beneath a little white 
mosque near Bethlehem) sleep till the morning of the 
resurrection. Joseph's body, too, is said to have been 
removed thither from Shechem, near Jacob's well, where 
his tomb is still shown. There never has been any doubt 
about the identity of the spot. Such caves are as ever- 
lasting as the hills to which they belong. The story of 
Machpelah is singularly touching. With what solemnity 
and carefulness did father Abraham acquire this his only 
property in the Holy Land from his heathen friend 
Ephron, and make it sure for ever by that first legal con- 




SKETCH PLAN OF THE GREAT MOSQUE AT HEBRON. 

Deep black lines mark the ancient Jewish Wall. Shaded parts unknown. 



1. Shrine of Abraham. 

2. " " Sarah. 

3. " Isaac. 

4. " " Rebekah. 

5. " " Jacob. 

6. " " Leah. 

7. " *' Joseph. 

8. " *' two Moslem saints. 

9. Fountain. 

10. Raised platform. 

11. Mihrab. 

12. Platform for the muezzin. 

13. Aperture leading to Cave. 

14. Minbar (or pulpit). 

A. Steps leading to outer door. 

B. Long narrow passage of easy 

steps, bounded on the left by 
ancient Jewish wall. 



C. Fountain. 

D. Here shoes are left. 

E. Passage chamber. 

F. Mosque, containing tv/o Shrines. 
Outer court. 

Cloister of arches, with domed 

roof. The Outer Narthex. 
Inner Narthex. 
„. Nave of Byzantine church. 
M. Room, leading to two Chambers 
containing Shrines of Jacob 
and Leah. 
N. Do. to that containing Shrine 

of Joseph. 
O. Minaret. 
P. Windows. 
Q. Minaret. 

R. The Jawaiiyeh Mosque. 



214 



BIBLE LANDS. 



tract recorded in history (Gen. 23 : 3-20). The scene 
comes back to us in all its circumstantial details, as Dr. 
Thomson shows so graphically from his own experience 
of bargaining among the Orientals of the present day.* 
How simple and impressive is the record of the succes- 
sive interments of the patriarchal families, and the burial 
of enmities between brothers over the graves of their 
fathers : first Sarah was buried (Gen. 23 : 19), then Abra- 
ham by Isaac and Ishmael (25 19, 10), then Isaac by his 
sons Esau and Jacob (35 127-29); and last we read the 
dying request of Jacob in Egypt : "And he charged them 
and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people : 
bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field 
of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burial-place. 
There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife ; there 
they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife ; and there I 
buried Leah" (49:29-31). How much of history, how 
many family joys and family griefs, what bright hopes of 
immortality and resurrection were gathered in that spot ! 
How strange that no allusion should be made to it in the 
later books of the Bible. But Josephus mentions beauti- 
ful marble monuments of Abraham and his sons in He- 
bron, and Machpelah was always regarded as one of the 
most sacred places on earth. 

From the time of its permanent Mussulman occupa- 
tion in 1 187 to 1862, the mosque was most jealously 
closed to all but Mohammedans, and the Machpelah is 
closed still. Previous to that year we had but three brief 
and confused accounts of stealthy visits, especially by a 

* The Land and the Book^ Vol. II„ p. 381 seq. 



HEBRON. 



215 



Spanish renegade, Ali Bey. Even the Mosque of Omar 
and the Mosque of Damascus were opened to foreigners 
before that of Hebron. At last, by a special firman of 
the Sultan, and after a great deal of trouble, the Prince of 
Wales was admitted to the interior in January, 1862, the 
Marquis of Bute in 1866, and the crown prince of Prussia 
in 1869. 

Dean Stanley, who, together with the Prussian Con- 
sul, Dr. Rosen, a learned archaeologist, accompanied the 
Prince of Wales, has given us a very interesting account 
of this visit* From it we learn that the patriarchs and 
their wives have separate shrines, enclosed with gates or 
railings, but they are empty cenotaphs or monuments in 
honor of the dead who lie beneath. The shrines of 
Abraham and Jacob were shown to the visitors, but 
not those of their wives. When the gate to the shrine 
of Abraham was thrown open, the guardians groaned 
aloud, and their chief remarked, "The princes of any 
other nation should have passed over my dead body soon- 
er than enter. But to the eldest son of Queen Victoria 
we are willing to accord even this privilege." Then he 
offered an ejaculatory prayer to Abraham : O friend of 
God, forgive this intrusion." Isaac's shrine they were 
not permitted to enter, for the singular reason that, while 
Abraham, who interceded for the wicked inhabitants of 

t In the second Appendix to his Lectures on the History of the Jewish 
Church, Vol. I., p. 535 seq. (New York, 1863). ^^so gives the ground 
plan of the map, drawn by Hon. R. H. Meade and Dr. Rosen immediately 
after the visit to the mosque. We have reproduced it on a smaller scale. 
Ferguson's account is contained in '*The Holy Sepulchre and the Temple 
at Jerusalem." London, 1865. 



2l6 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Sodom and Gomorrah, was full of kindness and would 
overlook an affront, Isaac was proverbially jealous, and 
might resent the insult. 

The most sacred and interesting part of the mosque, 
the dark subterranean cave itself, which contains the 
remains of the patriarchs, was closed to the distinguished 
visitors, and could only be seen through a small hole in 
the pavement. It is uncertain whether even the Mos- 
lems enter the Machpelah. Once, they say, twenty-five 
hundred years ago, a servant of a great king entered, 
but returned " blind, deaf, withered, and crippled.'* Since 
then the entrance was closed, and only the aperture left 
open, that the holy air may come up and a lamp be let 
down by a chain upon the grave. Stanley suggests as 
the reason why neither the Mussulmans nor the Chris- 
tians have ever explored the cave, that it was no place 
of pilgrimage. But may it not have been the supersti- 
tious fear of fatal consequences } 

The mystery which still hangs over Macphelah will 
be solved at no distant day, when perhaps the embalmed 
body of Jacob will be brought to light. 

As we approached the mosque and looked through 
the crevices of the dark, huge wall of enclosure, we had a 
taste of Moslem fanaticism which might have led to seri- 
ous consequences. Some dervishes and other devotees 
were just coming down the steep flight of the exterior 
staircase, and, supposing that we were going to enter the 
sanctuary, looked very fiercely at us ; one of them pushed 
me back with a violent thrust on the breast, but I quietly 
stood my ground and asked the dragoman to inform the 



HEBRON, 



217 



governor of the fact. We walked up to the hill behind 
the mosque pursued by the fanatic, and amid the curses 
and insults of the children we made our way to our tent 
near the Egyptian quarantine building. About an hour 
afterwards, as we sat down to dinner, the governor's sec- 
retary, a tall, commanding Turk, appeared with an officer 
and three soldiers, to make an apology for the violence 
committed and to offer us his protection. He assured us 
that he had put the offender in chains, and would keep 
him in prison as long as we desired. We asked him to 
let him run the next morning with a sound warning. He 
informed us that he had, at the direction of the Pasha of 
Jerusalem, sent ten soldiers into the wilderness to deliver 
us from the Bedawin. When we told him that we were 
Americans and Enghshmen, he was dehghted, and, signif- 
icantly rubbing his forefingers, he exclaimed, The Turks 
and the English are one." A strange compliment. He 
had fought with the English against the Russians in the 
Crimean war, and was sure of their help in the conflict 
which was then daily expected to break out. He left the 
three soldiers to watch our tent all night (for backsheesh), 
and, after a long smoke, he took leave with the profound- 
est bows. Had we thought of it, we might perhaps have 
obtained permission to visit the interior of the mosque at 
which the offence was committed. This would have been 
the best reward for the trouble. We broke camp early 
next morning without further disturbance, except a little 
skirmish of our high-spirited and well-armed dragoman 
with a few insolent Moslems on camels. 

From Hebron to Jerusalem is a good day's journey 

Bible Lands. 19 



2l8 



BIBLE LANDS. 



(seven or eight hours) on horseback. The road is rocky 
and rugged, and impassable for wheeled vehicles, till you 
reach Bethlehem. We ride over the barren but beautiful 
''hill country of Judaea" (Luke 1 139, 65), where David wan- 
dered in the days of his persecution, where Mary visited 
her cousin Elisabeth and sung the "Magnificat," the 
last psalm of the Old Testament, the first hymn of the 
New. 

The first resting-place, after a ride of three or four 
hours, is Solomon's Pools," three large reservoirs which 
supplied Bethlehem and Jerusalem with water, and do so 
still to some extent, although the aqueducts, like every- 
thing else in Palestine, are in a deplorable state of dilapi- 
dation. I was informed that a rich and benevolent Eng- 
lish lady offered a large sum for their repair, but the offer 
was refused by the stupid Turkish government. Beside 
the upper pool is a castle and khan of Saracenic origin, 
now occupied by the guardian. The lowest and finest 
pool (582 feet long, 207 broad, 50 deep, according to Por- 
ter) is partly hewn in the rock and partly lined with ma- 
sonry. A stony staircase leads down to the water, in 
which we took a refreshing bath. The name is derived 
from the book of Ecclesiastes (2 : 5, 6), where Solomon, 
among the vanities of pleasure, mentions "gardens and 
orchards " which he planted, and pools of water " which 
he made " to water therewith the wood that bringeth 
forth trees." 

An hour's ride brings us to Bethlehem ; next we pass 
Rachel's Tomb ; then the Convent of Mar Elias. Here 
we get the first glimpse of Jerusalem, and the expecta- 




RACHEL'S TOMB. 



HEBRON, 



219 



tion rises higher and higher as we approach the holiest 
city on earth. But we must stop a few hours in Beth- 
lehem, the first place in Judea where the reminiscences 
of the Old and New Testaments are blended. Our Sav- 
iour, so far as we know, never was south of Bethlehem, 
the city of his birth, except in the Flight to Egypt 
during his infancy. 



220 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

BETBLEHEM. 

Bethlehem Ephratah — RaehePs Tomb — Ruth and 
Boaz — David the Shepherd King — Mieah's Proph- 
ecy — The Incarnation — The Shepherds of Bethle- 
lem and the Wise Men from the East— The Gloria 
in Excelsis — The First Martyrs— Modern Bethle- 
hem—The Latin Convent — The Church of the 
Nativity — The Holy Crypt— The Chapel of the 
Manger— The Chapel of the Innocents — The Study 
of Jerome— The Latin Bible— The Grotto of the 
Shepherds— Protestant Schools — Bethlehem and 
Golgotha. 

" Bethlehem ! of noblest cities, 

None can once with thee compare ; 
Thou alone the Lord from heaven 

Didst for us incarnate bear !" prudentius. 

Bethlehem (House of Bread) is as familiar to us 
from childhood-days as our own home. At every Christ- 
mas, that festival of the renewal of humanity, the hearts 
of Christendom are gratefully turned to the birthplace 
of our Lord, and old men rejoice with little children over 
the Gift of gifts, the Bread of Life from heaven. 

Bethlehem is one of the oldest towns in Palestine. 
It was known to Jacob under the name of Ephrath or 
Ephratah (the fruitful). A short distance from the place 
on the road to Jerusalem, his beloved Rachel gave birth 
to Benoni, the son of her sorrow, and her death was the 
first consecration of Bethlehem for all future ages (Gen. 
35:16-20; 48:7). He erected a pillar on her grave, 



BETHLEHEM, 



221 



which is still sacredly guarded by the Mohammedans in 
-a little white mosque on a hill, from which can be seen 
the town and the surrounding country. Her sorrow was 
typical of greater sorrows at the birth of the Man of 
Sorrows (Matt. 2:18). Bethlehem next appears in the 
charming idyl of Ruth, that model of filial affection and 
devotion, who became the ancestress of David and of 
our Lord. Even now women and children may be seen 
gleaning after the reapers in the grain-fields of the fer- 
tile valley as she did in the field of Boaz. In Bethlehem 
the poet-king and hero of Israel was born, and tended 
his father's flock. Here he was anointed by Samuel ; 
here he may have composed that inimitable psalm, which 
represents Jehovah as the Good Shepherd feeding his 
people on green pastures, and leading them beside the 
still waters. Travellers still refresh their thirst at " Da- 
vid's Well," a deep cistern hewn in the rock, half a mile 
north of the town. When in the cave of Adullam, 
David longed and said, "Oh, that one would give me 
drink from the waters of the well of Bethlehem that is 
at the gate!" (i Chron. 11:15-19.) To Bethlehem 
Ephratah the prophet pointed as the birthplace of the 
Messiah, who shall be a ruler in Israel (Micah 5 : 2). 

But what shall we say of that amazing event which 
forms the turning point in the history of mankind, clo- 
sing the era of night and death, and ushering in the era 
of light and life Jacob and Rachel, Ruth and Boaz, 
and David himself disappear before Him who was David's 
son, and yet David's Lord. With unlettered shepherds 

of the field and the learned sages from the far East who 

19# 



222 



BIBLE LANDS. 



followed the Star of Bethlehem, we bow in childlike faith 

before the miracle of miracles, "the great mystery of 

godhness, God manifest in the flesh." 

" Was kein Verstand der Verstandigen sieht, 
Das glaubet in Einfalt ein kindlich Gemiith !" 

"What a mighty influence for good," says Dr. Robin- 
son, who seldom gives vent to his emotions, " has gone 
forth from this little spot upon the human race both for 
time and eternity ! It is impossible to approach the 
place without a feeling of deep emotion, springing out 
of these high and holy associations. The legends and 
puerilities of monastic tradition may safely be disre- 
garded ; it is enough to know that this is Bethlehem, 
where Jesus the Redeemer was born. Generation after . 
generation has indeed since that time passed away, and 
their places now know them no more. For eighteen 
hundred seasons the earth has now renewed her carpet 
of verdure, and seen it again decay. Yet the skies and 
the fields, the rocks and the hills and the valleys around, 
remain unchanged, and are still the same as when the 
glory of the Lord shone about the shepherds, and the 
song of a multitude of the heavenly host resounded 
among the hills, proclaiming * Glory to God in the high- 
est, and on earth peace, good-will to men.* " 

With all these sacred associations crowding upon the 
memory, and with beating hearts we approach modern 
Bethlehem (Beit-lahm), over a ridge of terraced vineyards 
and gardens with evergreen olives and luxuriant fig-trees, ^ 
and alight before the stately Latin monastery, which 
looks like a mediaeval fortress. We are not disappointed 



BETHLEHEM. 



223 



in our expectations. The scenes of nature harmonize 
better than the people with our faith, and yet they con- 
trast favorably with their Moslem neighbors. We are 
saluted with smiles, and not with scowls, as in fanatical 
Hebron. Bright children run up to hold our horses 
and offer us crucifixes, beads, bracelets, and sacred pic- 
tures for sale. A kind-hearted cowled Franciscan from 
Venice politely places the spacious reception-hall at our 
disposal, treats us to some simple refreshments, then 
shows us the church of the Nativity and the subterra- 
nean chapels, and dismisses us with his blessing. 

The town, like Jerusalem and most towns rn southern 
Palestine, is built on a hill. It has an air of industry, 
thrift, and comfort which are very rare in the East, 
though not equal, of course, to a town of the same size 
in Europe or the United States. German industry has 
of late greatly stimulated the natural fertility of the soil. 
The wine of Bethlehem is considered better than that of 
Jerusalem. The flat-roofed houses are built of white 
limestone, and partly cut in the rock. The inhabitants 
number about 5,000, and are nearly all Christians of the 
Greek Church. The Moslem quarter was destroyed by 
Ibrahim Pasha after the rebellion in 1834. The people 
are engaged in agriculture, gardening, and the manufac- 
ture of relics and sacred ornaments made of olive, moth- 
er-of-pearl and Dead-Sea wood. They have a restless 
and rebellious temper, and formerly lived in frequent 
strife with their neighbors in Hebron and Jerusalem. 

The women of Bethlehem have the reputation of supe- 
rior beauty, and rival in this respect their sisters in Naz- 



224 



BIBLE LANDS, 



areth. Theirs is the Syrian type of beauty : dark eyes, 
bright faces, noble figures and graceful carriage. Some 
of them may have crusaders' blood in their veins. It is 
a remarkable fact that the birthplace of Christ, and the 
home of his childhood and youth, though dilapidated 
and groaning under Turkish misrule, should bear witness 
to the superiority of Christian women over all other 
women. 

To this day the fields of Bethlehem illustrate many 
an incident in the book of Ruth. The very salutation, 
* The Lord be with you !' and the reply, ' The Lord bless 
thee r may be heard as the farmer goes up to his labor- 
ers. The supper of the reapers, when the day's work is 
done, is still the parched corn eaten on the spot — a few 
bunches of fresh ears, singed in a fire kindled for the 
purpose, and then rubbed and roughly winnowed by the 
hand. The large cotton or linen cloth, 'the veil,' which 
binds down the headdress of the Bethlehemite woman, 
is very distinct from the female dress elsewhere, and is 
still, like Ruth's, large enough to hold six measures of 
barley; and still the owner sle-eps by his cornheaps at 
night, generally with all his family, till the harvest is 
finished."* 

Let us now visit the traditional holy sites which are 
here crowded together in one spot. 

"The Church of the Nativity," or of St. Mary, the 
oldest in Christendom, was erected by Helena, the moth- 
er of Constantine, A. d., 327, on the site of a khan or 

* From Canon Tristram's Bible Places^ p. 74. Compare also Thom- 
son, The Land and the Book, II., p. 509 seq. 



BETHLEHEM. 



22$ 



inn in which Christ is believed to have been born. It is 
the common property of the Greeks, Latins, and Arme- 
nians, who have each a stately convent adjoining it. The 
four rows of Corinthian marble columns (said to have 
been taken from the temple of Jerusalem), the faded 
mosaics on the wall, and the roof of cedar-wood from 
Lebanon, betray its ancient splendor. Unfortunately 
the jealousy of the rival sects disgraces the building, and 
a Turkish guard must keep them from open hostility. 
In the early ages of persecution the heathen were forced 
to exclaim, *'How these Christians love one another!" 
Now they have reason to say. How these Christians hate 
one another! Even our saintly monk could not refrain 
from heaping abuses on the Greeks, to whom he denied 
every claim to the sacred edifice. The monkish quarrels 
over the Holy Crypt and the Holy Sepulchre kindled 
the flame of the Crimean war, and give the Eastern 
question a European significance. There is little pros- 
pect of converting the Moslems before Christians make 
peace among themselves and approach them with the 
power of a united faith and a conquering love. 

We descend on one of the two spiral staircases to 
the Holy Crypt," a cave in the solid rock twenty feet 
under the great choir. It is the holy of holies, and lighted 
by ever-burning lamps. We look with reverence on the 
marble slab with a silver star encircled by the simple but 
pregnant inscription, 

Hic DE ViRGiNE Maria Jesus Christus natus est." 

It is by no means impossible that this grotto was the 



226 



BIBLE LANDS. 



very spot of the Nativity. It seems to have been known 
already two hundred years before Helena built the church 
over it. There was no doubt only one inn or khan in 
the little town, and Joseph and Mary, unable to find room 
in the overcrowded tavern, sought temporary refuge in 
the adjoining stable in the cave and laid the child in a 
manger. We say temporary shelter; for they received 
the visit of the Magi in a house (Matt. 2:11). In the 
East the house and the stable are often under the same 
roof, and men and cattle not strictly separated. There 
are many natural caves in Palestine, which afford easy 
shelter to cattle, and are used as stables.* 

We try to enter into the feelings of " the Wedded 
Maid and Virgin Mother,'' and to realize the contrast 
between the Mater gaudiosa " at the cradle of the infant 
Jesus and the Mater dolorosa at the cross of the 
dying Saviour. 

" Stabat Mater speciosa 
Juxta foenum gaudiosa, 

Dum jacebat parvulus — 
Cujus animam gaudentem, 
Lastabundam ac ferventem 
Pertransivit jubilus." 

* St Luke (2 :7, 12, 16), speaks only of "a manger " in which Mary 
laid her first-born son, *' because there was no room for them in the inn." 
But already in the middle of the second century Justin Martyr {Dial. cu77t 
Tryphone Jtid.^ 78), who was a native of Palestine, mentions that Christ was 
born "in a grotto {iv a^rikan^ nvi) near Bethlehem," and Origen in the third 
century {Contra Celsum I. 51) speaks of this as publicly known, so that 
even the heathen regarded it as the birthplace of Christ. Dr. Robinson, 
as usual, is skeptical, but W. Hepworth Dixon {The Holy Land, 1865, ch. 
14), ingeniously pleads for the traditional cave, and tries to prove, also, 
that the inn of the Nativity was the patrimony of Boaz and the home of 
David. 



BETHLEHEM. 



227 



We are also shown the chapel of the Praesepium or 
Manger (the origmal manger was long ago carried to 
Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome), the station of the 
Magi, the chapel of Joseph, and the chapel of the Inno- 
cents slain by the wrath of Herod. A massive column 
marks the spot where 20,000 martyred innocents were 
buried. This is, of course, an absurd exaggeration, like 
most of the monkish legends. But I thought of Matthew's 
simple narrative, and the hymn of Prudentius, " Salvete, 
flores martyrum !" Those infant martyrs unconsciously 
bore their bloody testimony to the fact of the incarnation, 
and are now leading the countless choir of saved infants 
in heaven. 

Hail, infant martyrs ! new-born victims, hail ! 

Hail, earliest flowerets of the Christian spring ! 
O'er whom, Hke rosebuds scattered by the gale, 

The cruel sword such havoc dared to fling. 
The Lord's first votive offerings of blood. 

First tender lambs upon the altar laid, 
Around in fearless innocence they stood, 

And sported gayly with the murderous blade." 

Whatever be the claim to the identity of these partic- 
ular spots and the rubbish of superstition which has 
accumulated over them, it is impossible not to be im- 
pressed afresh with the power and beauty of the simple 
Scripture account of that Christ-child who has been 
described by a poetic commentator as the moving centre 
of the world setting everything in motion attracting all 
that is genial, repelling all that is hostile ; concealed, yet 
well known ; hated and feared by the bad, yet longed for 



228 



BIBLE LANDS. 



and loved by the good ; despised, yet marvellously honor- 
ed ; beset with danger, yet kept in perfect safety. 

" Welcome to our wondering sight, 

Eternity shut in a span ! 
Summer in winter ! day in night ! 

Heaven in earth ! and God in man ! 
Great little One, whose glorious birth 

Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth.'^ 

About one place beneath the same church there can 
be no historical doubt : it is the chapel, once the study, 
of St. Jerome. This great scholar divided his life between 
the East and the West, his enthusiasm between the 
Roman classics and the holy Scriptures, and achieved the 
double crown of a monastic saint and a church father. 
He was, even after his famous dream, a Ciceronian as 
well as a Christian, and a spicy, ill-tempered polemic as 
well as a humble recluse. He is fitly represented as a 
penitent in a reading or writing posture, with a lion and 
a skull. Everybody knows Domenichino's masterpiece, 
"The Communion of St. Jerome," in the Vatican. In 
the subterranean cavern, close by the cradle of the infant 
Saviour, he spent thirty years till his death (a. d., 419). 
Here he completed his monumental work which, far 
more than his monkish piety and all his other books, 
entitles him to the lasting gratitude of the Church. His 
improved Latin version of the Bible, called the Vulgate, 
gave to Western Europe in the dark ages when Hebrew 
was unknown and Greek forgotten, nearly all its scanty 
knowledge of the Word of God, and is still the standard 
Bible of the Roman Church. It was of inestimable value 



BETHLEHEM, 



229 



also to the Reformers and Protestant translators of the 
Bible into the vernacular tongues, whereby it has ceased 
to be merely a manual of the clergy and become what it 
was intended to be, a book for the common people, for all 
sorts and conditions of men. Our English Bible, if we 
are to judge from the innumerable cases where the defi- 
nite article is disregarded, seems to have been made from 
the Latin Vulgate rather than from the original Greek 
and Hebrew. Even for the Biblical scholarship of the 
present day Jerome retains an important place among 
the indirect witnesses for the oldest text of the Greek 
Testament. 

In the fertile plain below, about a mile east from the 
convent, on a green slope is a group of ruins and the 
grotto surrounded by olive-trees, where the angel of the 
Lord is said to have appeared to the shepherds with the 
glad tidings of great joy. Over those fields the heavenly 
host sung the first Christmas carol which was to resound 
through all ages in all lands of Christendom : 

" Glory to God in the highest, 
And on earth peace among men of his good pleasure." * 

The holy family spent about two months in Bethle- 
hem ; for the presentation in the temple, which took place 
forty days after the birth, and the adoration of the Magi 
who probably arrived soon afterwards, must have occurred 
before the flight to Egypt, where they remained till the 

* Or, "among men with whom he is well pleased." This is the old- 
est and best-supported reading of Luke .2: 14. There are two clauses, 
each containing three ideas, which correspond to each other: glory- 
peace ; to God— among men ; in the highest (in heaven)— on earth. 

Bible Lands. 20 



230 



BIBLE LANDS. 



death of Herod, and then returned directly to Nazareth, 
their proper home (Matt 2 : 22, 23). 

The evangelical missionary zeal, which nearly forty 
years ago founded the Anglo-Prussian bishopric in Jeru- 
salem, has reached Bethlehem. A flourishing school, 
now under the direction of a pious German (Mr. Mtiller 
from Wurttemberg), has been established, and a fine 
building erected in 1864 by the yemsalems- Verein of Ber- 
lin. I found there eighteen pupils, some of them bright 
and promising and well versed in Bible history. Two 
other schools for boys and girls are connected with this 
institution. They are the humble cradles of a better 
future for this ever-memorable spot. 

Bethlehem is only six miles or an easy two hours' ride 
south of Jerusalem. The birthplace of our Lord almost 
within sight of Calvary ! So birth and death, joy and 
grief are ever near each other. Bethlehem and Golgotha, 
the two most sacred spots on earth, yet more sacred the 
great facts and eternal truths which they symbolize ! 
Happy he who has seen them with his eyes, far happier 
he who has them enshrined in his heart, in whom Christ 
is born, and who in Christ is crucified to the world and 
alive to God ! 

In Bethlehem the Lord of glory, 

Who brought us life, first drew his breath ; 

On Golgotha, O bloody story ! 

By death he broke the power of death. 

From western shores, all danger scorning, 

I travelled through the lands of morning; 

And greater spots I nowhere saw 

Than Bethlehem and Golgotha. 



BETHLEHEM. 



Where are the seven works of wonder 

The ancient world beheld with pride ? 
They all have fallen, sinking under 

The splendor of the Crucified ! 
I saw them, as I wandered spying, 
Amid their ruins crumbled, lying ; 
None stand in quiet gloria 
Like Bethlehem and Golgotha. 

"Away, ye pyramids, whose bases 
Lie shrouded in Egyptian gloom. 
Eternal graves ! no resting-places, 

Where hope immortal gilds the tomb. 
Ye sphinxes, vain was your endeavor 
To solve life's riddle, dark for ever, 
Until the answer came with awe 
From Bethlehem and Golgotha. 

" O heart ! what profits all thy kneeling, 
Where once He laid His infant head, 
To view with an enraptured feeling 

His grave, long empty of its dead ? 
To have him born in thee with power, 
To die to earth and sin each hour, 
And live to Him, this only, ah ! 
Is Bethlehem and Golgotha."* 

* From the German of Friedrich Riickert. 



232 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

yERUSALEM. 

Conflicting Impressions— Sadly disappointed, yet 
deeply impressed — Jerusalem seen from Mount 
Olivet— Jerusalem Pastand Present — Population- 
Its Cosmopolitan Character in the Easter Season — 
The Study of Ruins— The Sights of the City. 

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the proph- 
ets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often 
would I have gathered thy children together, even as a 
hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye 
would not ! Behold your house is left unto you desolate." 

This was my first, this my last impression of Jeru- 
salem. I can understand the traveller who said, " I am 
sadly disappointed, yet deeply impressed sadly dis- 
appointed as to the present condition of Jerusalem, deep- 
ly impressed as to its sacred associations. My low ex- 
pectations of the former and my high expectations of the 
latter have been fully met. 

No city in the world excites such opposite feelings. 
It is the most holy and the most unholy, or I should say, 
the most desecrated spot in the world. Beautiful for 
situation," sings the Psalmist, ^' the joy of the whole earth, 
is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the 

great King. God is known in her palaces for a refuge 

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined." 



JERUSALEM. 



233 



(Psa. 48 : 2, 3 ; 50 : 2.) How doth the city sit solitary 
that was full of people !" laments the prophet in his 
funeral dirge, how is she become a widow ! she that was 
great among the nations, and princess among the prov- 
inces, how is she become tributary!" (Lam. 1:1.) 
The Moslems, who look down with ignorant and stupid 
contempt upon Christians and their religion, rule and 
ruin the land and occupy the temple area. Mount Olivet, 
and Bethany; while other sacred places, as the church 
of the Holy Sepulchre, are guarded by their soldiers. 
The native churches unfortunately have but the empty 
shell of the religion they profess, and present. a spectacle 
not unlike the Jewish synagogue at the time of Christ 
and the apostles. We approach Jerusalem with rever- 
ence and awe, and are overwhelmed with the memories 
of the stupendous events which here took place; but we 
are pained and shocked by the base superstition and 
empty formalism which meet us everywhere. Here the 
Saviour died and rose again for the salvation of mankind ; 
and here his religion is turned into a shame and reproach. 
We are charmed with the beautiful situation and the 
hills that surround the city of David ; but we are disgust- 
ed with the wretched interior, the ill-paved, narrow and 
dirty streets, the ignorance, poverty, and misery of the 
inhabitants. We seek a fair type of 

"Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest;" 

and we find instead 

Jerusalem the stony, with dirt and rubbish cursed. 

We desire to come nearer to Christ on the spots which 

20^ 



234 



BIBLE LANDS. 



he touched, like the Crusaders of old; but we are told 
that he is not here, he is risen and ascended to heaven. 

And yet after all, no city, not even Rome, can be 
more interesting to a Christian than Jerusalem ; and the 
interest increases the more we study its ruins of a glori- 
ous past The poetry is marred, but the reality is deep- 
ened. And while we are filled with mingled feelings of 
pity and indignation at the melancholy condition of the 
native population and religion under the corrupt despot- 
ism of the Turks, we are inspired with the hope of a new 
Jerusalem that is gradually springing up by the pious 
and benevolent efforts of foreigners, who labor for the 
revival of Bible Christianity in this Bible land. The time 
may come again when 

" Glorious things of thee are spoken, 
Zion, city of our God." 

Whoever approaches Jerusalem from the west, the 
north, or even from the south, will be disappointed. But 
viewed from Mount Olivet, on the east, Jerusalem pre- 
sents a beautiful and imposing sight, and justifies all the 
praises lavished upon her by the singers of Israel. For- 
tunately God's mountains and God's nature cannot be 
destroyed by the vandalism of man. From Mount Oli- 
vet Jerusalem should be seen first and seen last. That 
sight can never be forgotten. It is the spot from which 
the Saviour looked upon the temple and wept over the 
unbelief and approaching doom of the ungrateful city. 
It is the spot from which he ascended to heaven to take 
possession of his throne as the King of the Church. 

The history of Jerusalem is full of romantic and tragic 



JERUSALEM. 



235 



interest. It has seen about twenty sieges and destruc- - 
tions. There is a Jerusalem of the Jebusites, a Jerusa- 
lem of David and Solomon, a Jerusalem of Ezra and Ne- 
hemiah, a Jerusalem of the Ptolemies, a Jerusalem of 
the Maccabees, a Jerusalem of Herod, a Jerusalem of 
the Romans, a Jerusalem of the Christian emperors, a 
Jerusalem of the Saracens, a Jerusalem of the Crusaders, 
and a Jerusalem of the Turks. Throughout all these 
changes it has been claimed as a holy city by Jews, 
Christians, and Mohammedans. 

The Jerusalem of our Saviour and the apostles lies - 
buried from twenty to eighty feet under the ruins and 
rubbish of centuries. The prophecy of Jeremiah (30: 18) 
that the city shall be builded upon her own heap," has 
been fulfilled many times. There is no street left which 
our Saviour trod, and no house which he saw. This 
makes it very difficult to identify any of the old sites. 
The internal relations of the city are *^a mass of topo- 
graphical controversy, unequalled for its extent, for its 
confusion, and for its bitterness." It is only quite re- 
cently that by the noble exertions of the Palestine Explo- 
ration Society, continued for three years (i 867-1 870), 
parts of the subterranean city have been brought to the 
knowledge of the world.* But these labors were inter- 
rupted and the shafts closed up, so that little or nothing 

* The results of the Palestine Exploration Society are summed up 
in the following works : The Recovery of yerusalem^ London, 1871. Our 
Work in Palestine : Being an Account of the Different Expeditions sent out 
to the Holy Land by the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, Lon» 
don, 1873. Capt. Charles Warren, Underground Jerusalem^ London, 
1876. Dr. Carl Zimmermann, ICarten und Plane zur Topographie des 
alten Jerusalem^ Basel, 1876, 



236 



BIBLE LANDS, 



can be seen now. The superstitious inhabitants fear that 
their houses will fall down if the work should go on. At 
present the topography of Jerusalem is more confused, 
by new theories and speculations, than ever. The course 
of the ancient walls, on which depends the solution of 
the problem of the traditional site of the Holy Sepulchre, 
is still undetermined. The only place within the city 
about which there is a general agreement among scholars 
is Mount Moriah, and even there the exact site of the 
ancient temple is under dispute. It is to be hoped that 
before long the excavations will be resumed on a larger 
scale and under the protection of a better government. 

In the first century Jerusalem contained a very large 
population, although the figures of Josephus seem to be 
greatly exaggerated.* He states that the number of 
paschal lambs slain on a passover during the governor- 
ship of Cestius under Nero amounted to 256,500 ; which, 
upon an allowance of ten to a party, would imply over 
two millions and a half actually present in the city 
during that festival. He also states that at the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem (a. d. 70) eleven hundred thousand 
Jews perished, and ninety seven thousand were sold into 
slavery. This includes about 600,000 strangers who, 
from fanaticism and fear of the Romans, had crowded 
into the doomed city before the siege ; but even if we 
deduct them we would still have more than half a million 
of inhabitants in the last days of ancient Jerusalem. 

The present number of inhabitants is stated by Ba- 
deker to be 24,000, among whom 13,000 are Moslems, 

* Bell, yud,, book VI., ch. 9, § 3. 




POOL OF HEZEKIAH. 



JERUSALEM. 



237 



7,000 Christians, and 4,000 Jews. But Dr. Bernhard 
Neumann, a Jewish physician who resided fifteen years 
in Jerusalem, estimates the total number of inhabitants 
at 36,000, namely : 15,000 Mohammedans, 13,000 Jews, 
and 8,000 Christians (including 5,000 Franks).* 

In the Easter season Jerusalem has quite a cosmo- 
politan aspect, and besides the vernacular Arabic you 
may hear about a dozen languages spoken. The number 
of pilgrims sometimes amounts to 10,000 and more. In 
other seasons Jerusalem must be an exceedingly dull 
place. There are no amusements of any kind. There 
is not even a newspaper published there except in the 
Hebrew language. The only periodicals you see in the 
hotels (the Mediterranean and the Damascus) come from 
abroad and are addressed to visitors. There is no reg- 
ular mail but once a week or a fortnight, brought by the 
steamer from Jaffa. 

Jerusalem is the place for the study of ruins. The 
whole city is a venerable ruin. 

I spent nearly two weeks in Jerusalem, including 
Greek and Latin Easter — long enough for deep and last- 
ing impressions, though not for careful investigation. I 
walked around the walls, which can be done in an hour. 
I visited the places of interest in and around the city, 
the Christian churches, monasteries, and hospices, the 
synagogues, the mosques, the citadel, the coenaculum, the 
tomb of David, the Via Dolorosa, the cemeteries, the 
Valley of the Kedron, the tombs of Absalom, St. James, 
and Zachariah, St, Mary s Well, the Pool of Siloam, Job's 

* Die heilige Siadt und dere^i Bewohnert Hamburgh 1S77, p. 216. 



238 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Well, Aceldama, the Valley of Hinnom, the Tombs of 
the Kings, the Tombs of the Judges, the quarries of the 
the temple, etc. I attended the public services, the 
schools and hospitals. I went twice to Gethsemane, 
Mount Olivet, Mount Scopus, and Bethany. I made an 
excursion to Nebi Samwil, the highest mountain near 
Jerusalem, and enjoyed a magnificent view over the plain 
of Sharon as far as Ramleh and Jaffa, the battle-field of 
Joshua (Josh, lo : lo), Gibeon, Mizpeh, and the distant 
mountains of Moab. I did not neglect to visit the archae- 
ological and literary curiosity-shop of Mr. Shapira (a con- 
verted German Jew) and his disputed Moab antiquities, 
and the instructive models of Jerusalem, the Tabernacle, 
and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, made by Conrad 
Schick, who kindly explained them to me. I became ac- 
quainted with Bishop Gobat and family. Rev. Messrs. 
Heffter, Friedlander, Klein and Reinke, Dr. Chaplin, 
Mr. Frutiger, and other Pre cant residents who are en- 
gaged in Christian work, and enabled me to learn more 
in a few days than I could otherwise in as many weeks. 
I stayed in the Mediterranean Hotel near the Jaffa gate, 
kept by a converted Jew (Moses Hornstein), and from 
the top of it I looked every morning over the dome- 
shaped roofs of the houses to Mount Olivet and into the 
Pool of Hezekiah. I met around the table every day the 
German consul (Baron von Munchhausen), the late 
American consul (Dr. De Hass), and an interesting va- 
riety of strangers from England, Scotland, America, Ger- 
many, and Holland, Catholics, Presbyterians, Episcopa- 
lians, Methodists, Baptists, and Lutherans. 




JAFFA. 



JERUSALEM. 



239 



From the multiplicity of objects which engaged my 
attention during this sojourn, I can only select a few for 
special description. The number of works on Jerusalem, 
ancient and modern, is so large that almost any new de- 
scription is a work of supererogation. Let us first turn 
our attention to the present state of religion in the city 
as far as it came under my observation. 



240 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

RELIGION IN yER US ALE M. 

The Easter Festivities— The Wooden Christ— Seven 
Sermons in Seven Languages— Feet- washing— 
The Greek Fire— The Greek Church- The Latin 
Chureli— Oriental Sects— The Protestant Church- 
es and Institutions The Anglo-Prussian Bish- 
opric—Bishop Gobat— The Jewish Missionary So- 
ciety—The German Colony — Chrischona and Kai- 
serswerth— Talitha Kumi — The Jews. 

EASTER FESTIVITIES. 

I WITNESSED in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
the solemnities of the Latin and Greek Easter festivals, 
which in 1877 were divided by one week, the former 
falling on April i, the latter on April 8. I saw none of 
the disgraceful fights between the rival communions 
which are said sometimes to dishonor the Christian name 
on the very spot of the Crucifixion, and to call for the 
intervention of the Mohammedan soldiers who are pres- 
ent in large force and look on with stolid indifference 
and sovereign contempt. 

I cannot say that I have been favorably impressed. 
I would gladly recognize piety and devotion to Christ 
even under the crude and distorted forms of supersti- 
tion. But I could not restrain the feeling that this is 
not the worship "in spirit and in truth" which our Sav-^ 




VIA DOLOROSA. 



RELIGION IN JERUSALEM. 241 



iour demands. In point of taste and art the solemni- 
ties of the holy week are far inferior to those of St. Pe- 
ter's in Rome, and not to be compared with the Passion 
play at Ober-Ammergau, which I witnessed in 1871. 
The singing is miserable, and the only good music I 
heard in Jerusalem was in the Russian church and in the 
Protestant service. The Orientals seem to have no idea 
of music. The crowd in the Church of the Holy Sepul- 
chre is almost crushing during the services. I saw a 
wooden Christ carried about and embalmed, on the Latin 
Good Friday, and heard seven sermons, good, bad, and 
indifferent, in as many languages. I saw the feet-wash- 
ing on Greek Maundy Thursday, and the wild struggle 
of the people for the branches of the olive-tree, which are 
thrown among them at the close of the ceremony. I wit- 
nessed, on the Greek Easter eve, the scandalous fraud of 
the Holy Fire, and the tumultuous eagerness with which 
the superstitious people light their tapers at the sacred 
flame — said to be miraculously sent from heaven, but in 
fact kindled by the priests within the chapel of the Holy 
Sepulchre. It seems to have been originally a symboli- 
cal representation of the light of the Resurrection or the 
Pentecostal fire. On Good Friday all the lamps were ex- 
tinguished ; on Easter they were relighted. But in the 
course of time the innocent symbol was turned into a 
lying miracle to feed the superstition of the ignorant 
people and to fill the pockets of the priests. The La- 
tins, w^ho formerly shared in it, now denounce it without 
mercy. Even the Armenian patriarch is said to have 
preached against this pious humbug, and yet he coun- 

Bible LanclB. 21 



242 



BIBLE LANDS. 



tenances it in practice together with the orthodox 
Greeks. 

Before I left for the East, Dean Stanley, with his 
characteristic broad church charity, told me that he 
found it very beautiful to see the various Christian sects 
uniting in the worship of Christ under the same roof. 
But Protestants are excluded, and the old sects hate each 
other more than they do the Protestants. The jealousy 
and rivalry between the Greeks and Latins, though it 
may not break out openly, is as great as ever, and is one 
of the saddest aspects of Eastern Christianity. 

THE OLD CHURCHES. 

The Greek Church is the strongest in Jerusalem as 
to number, wealth, and influence, and is backed by the 
power of Russia. Its native members are Arabs, and 
speak Arabic ; its clergy are mostly foreigners from the 
Greek islands, and speak modern Greek. It owns several 
monasteries. The Great Greek Monastery," or Patriar- 
cheion, near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, is the 
residence of the patriarch, and has a valuable library. 
The Monastery of St. John the Baptist " can accommo- 
date five hundred pilgrims at Easter. A rich Greek 
priest built a beautiful summerhouse on the road to 
Jaffa, with a garden abounding in trees and flowers. 

The Russians erected, from i860 to 1864, several im- 
posing and conspicuous buildings on an eminence west 
of the Jaffa gate. They consist of a consular residence, 
two hospices, one for men, one for women, and a beau- 
tiful church. The orthodox Church of Russia is un- 



RELIGION IN JERUSALEM, 



doubtedly the most vital and hopeful part of the Orien- 
tal Church, but is regarded with some jealousy by the 
Greeks. 

The Latin communion, though smaller, is more active, 
and derives its chief support from France and Italy. It 
is governed by a rival patriarch. It numbers several con- 
vents (called the Terra Santa convents), schools, and 
charitable institutions. The Casa Nuova of the Francis- 
cans is a commodious and exceptionally clean hospice 
near the Jaffa Gate, and affords accommodation to trav- 
ellers for a very reasonable sum (five francs a day, while 
the hotels charge twelve francs or more). Protestants 
are freely admitted as well as Catholics, and find hospi- 
table treatment. 

Both the Greek and Latin churches have been lately 
stirred up to new zeal by the educational labors of the 
Protestants. 

The Oriental Schismatics are likewise represented in 
Jerusalem. The Armenians have a fine church, dedicated 
to St. James, a convent, and a hospice, near Mount Zion, 
and look intelligent and prosperous. Their spiritual ruler 
is called Patriarch of Jerusalem. The Copts and Abys- 
sinians are poor and insignificant. 

THE PROTESTANT INSTITUTIONS. 

The Protestants form the smallest of the Christian 
communities, but are growing in influence, and seem to 
be respected by the Mohammedans, who abhor the other 
Christians as idolaters. 

The Church of England and the Evangelical Church 



244 



BIBLE LANDS. 



of Prussia have been at work here for the last thirty or 
forty years. They are aided by the Crischona Institute 
of Basle, and the Deaconesses' Institute at Kaiserswerth. 
There are now three Protestant congregations in Jerusa- 
lem, an English, a German, and a native Arab, all in 
nominal connection with the bishopric of St. James ; but 
the English congregation, which consists mostly of Jew- 
ish proselytes, is under the direction of the London Jew- 
ish Missionary Society, the Arab congregation under the 
care of the English Church Missionary Society, and the 
German congregation under the care of the Prussian 
Oberkirchenrath. 

The Anglo-German, or rather the Prusso-Anglican 
bishopric of St. James, was projected in 1841 by the 
pious zeal of King Frederick William IV. (the brother of 
the Emperor of Germany) and his friend Chevalier Bun- 
sen, both equally distinguished for sincere piety, brilliant 
genius, literary and artistic culture, love of mediaeval 
romance, and sanguine hope of Christian union on the 
basis of the primitive Church. The king gave one half 
of the episcopal endowment fund (;^i5,ooo), England the 
other half. The novel scheme encouraged sanguine hopes, 
and provoked ridicule and opposition. Some dreamed the 
sweet dream of an approaching reunion of all Christen- 
dom, with Jerusalem as its centre ; while two theological 
professors at Berne (Schneckenburger and Hundesha- 
gen) hurled at the founders an anonymous pamphlet, 
with the characteristic motto, *'Will a wise man fill his 
belly with East wind German Christians care little 
for episcopacy and the Anglican liturgy, but help to sup- 



RELIGION IN JERUSALEM, 245 

port the benevolent institutions. The English Church is 
divided on the Jerusalem mission. The Low church or 
evangelical party favors it, but the High church party is 
opposed to an alliance with a non-episcopal sect, although 
the king of Prussia unwisely conceded the reordination 
of German ministers, and the right of a veto of the arch- 
bishop of Canterbury with respect to the bishop alter- 
nately to be nominated by the crown of Prussia. The 
Tractaria.ns and Ritualists even abhor the Jerusalem 
episcopate as an impudent interference with the jurisdic- 
tion of the Greek sister Church. 

Nevertheless the bishopric has done good, and will 
live. The first bishop. Dr. Solomon Alexander, a con- 
verted Jew, was appointed by England, and labored from 
1 84 1 to 1845. The second bishop. Dr. Samuel Gobat, a 
Swiss by birth, and formerly a missionary in Abyssinia, 
trained in the mission institute at Basle, a good Arabic 
scholar, was appointed by Prussia, and consecrated in 
1846. He is now eighty years old, and feeble, but has 
been very active in his day, and established several use- 
ful schools in Jerusalem and other places. He has re- 
cently committed them to the care of the English Church 
Missionary Society, with the exception of the Orphan 
House on Mount Zion. I heard him preach, on Easter 
morning, an evangelical sermon (with which a ritualist 
clergyman of England was greatly displeased) in the 
English church on Mount Zion, a few steps frorn his 
residence. In the afternoon I preached a German resur- 
rection sermon in the same church, and during the week 
I made an English address at a prayer-meeting in the 

2P 



240 BIBLE LANDS. 

adjoining chapel. The late Bishop Marvin, of the South- 
ern Methodist church, preached an eloquent sermon in 
the chapel, at which Gobat was present. The services 
were well attended, but mostly by foreigners. Worship 
is also conducted in the Hebrew language for Jewish 
proselytes, after the order of the Book of Common Prayer. 
The church is a substantial and beautiful edifice, with a 
good parsonage for the rector, a chapel, a valuable libra- 
ry, and schoolhouses for boys and girls. It was erected 
in 1847, from the Episcopal fund, but by the "Lon- 
don Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews," 
which controls it still, so that the bishop has little to 
say. 

This Society, which dates from 1808, is the pioneer 
of Protestantism in Jerusalem. It began operations 
among the Jews in Palestine in 1823, by sending a med- 
ical missionary. Dr. Dalton (who died in 1826), and then 
the Rev. J. Nicolayson (who continued till 1839) Jgi*u- 
salem, and after several years of apparent failure it con- 
verted a number of persons, two-thirds of them Jews. 
The Society founded also a hospital for Jews with fifty 
beds, a house of industry, in which the converts learn 
a trade, and schools for children of Jewish prose- 
lytes. 

The new Episcopal church for the Arabs was erected 
in 1864 by the English Church Missionary Society. It 
is a very fine building, with a commodious parsonage, 
outside of the Jaffa gate, near the Russian property. It 
is at present in charge of Rev. Mr. Klein, who first found 
the famous Moabite stone. 



RELIGION IN JER U SALEM, 247 



The German congregation formerly worshipped in the 
church on Mount Zion, but has now a new church in 
the building of the Knights of St. John, with a pastor 
who is appointed by the highest council (the Oberkir- 
chenrath) of the Evangelical United Church of Prussia. 
A Prussian hospice is connected with it, and affords a 
pleasant home to Protestant travellers at a reasonable 
price. A society in Berlin, called the " Jerusalems-Ve- 
rein," founded in 1852, collects funds for the support of 
the German church and schools in Jerusalem and Beth- 
lehem. 

The resident Germans in Jerusalem are a very worthy 
and useful colony. Many of them were sent here as lay 
missionaries, teachers, and catechists, from the Chris- 
chona, near Basle, an institution founded by a pious and 
liberal layman, Mr. Spittler. Since 1868 a new German 
sect, called the Friends of the Temple, under the lead of 
Dr. Hoffmann of WUrtemberg, has established flourish- 
ing colonies at Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem. 

The German Deaconesses also are doing an excellent 
work in Jerusalem. They manage a hospital and a Prot- 
estant female school called Talitha Ktimi, two noble 
Christian institutions. The teachers and nurses are re- 
fined and devoted ladies, trained at Kaiserswerth on the 
Rhine, the mother-house of the Deaconesses, or Protes- 
tant Sisters of Charity. No traveller interested in Chris- 
tian education and philanthropy should neglect to visit 
Talitha Kumi, It is not far from the Jaffa Gate on a 
hill, a shining light for the neglected female children 
of Jerusalem. It is delightful to see the cleanliness and 



248 



BIBLE LANDS. 



politeness of the girls brought up in this school, as con- 
trasted with the filth and ignorance from which they 
have been raised. 

We must also favorably mention the Lepers Ho7ne. 
It was established by a pious German baroness Von Kef- 
fenbrinck, in 1867, has been sustained so far almost 
exclusively by funds collected in Germany. It is under 
the charge of a worthy and self-denying couple, Mr. and 
Mrs. Tappe, formerly Moravian missionaries in Labrador. 
There are at present eighteen inmates, all Mohammedans. 
When I saw the victims of this fearful and incurable dis- 
ease, which distorts the whole human frame, and deliv- 
ers all its members, one by one, to fatal putrefaction, I 
thanked God for such an institution, which is an honor 
to the Christian name. Outside of the Jaffa Gate some 
of these unfortunate creatures may be seen showing their 
disfigured and half-decayed limbs, and piteously begging 
alms, but there is no Saviour now on earth to heal them. 
Thank God, there are Christians who can at least alle- 
viate their sufferings. 

The Protestants enjoy full toleration for these benev- 
olent operations. The Turkish government cares for 
nothing but tribute from the people, and is afraid of 
offending Christian governments. 

I cannot conclude without directing attention to the 
fact that America, which has done so much for the ex- 
ploration of Palestine through Dr. Robinson and others, 
has done little for reviving primitive Christianity in 
this city, from which we received the greatest blessings. 
While the American Presbyterians have flourishing mis- 



RELIGION IN JERUSALEM. 249 

sions in Syria, and the Congregationalists in Turkey, 
there is not a single American mission church or mission 
school in all Palestine. It would indeed be wrong for 
any denomination to interfere with the good work of the 
Anglican Church, the Evangelical Church of Prussia, the 
Chrischona of Basle and the Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth. 
But the usefulness of their churches and schools already 
established might be largely increased by the aid and 
cooperation of American contributions and laborers. 

THE JEWS. 

A word about the Jews. They have four holy cities 
in Palestine : Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron. 
They still look forward to the restoration of their race 
and country. Their number in Jerusalem is growing 
rapidly and amounts fully to one third of the whole popu- 
lation. They are divided into three sects — the Sephar- 
diifiy of Spanish and Portuguese origin, the Askenazim, 
from Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Russia, and a small 
number of Karaites^ who adhere strictly to the letter of 
the written law and discard the rabbinical traditions. 
There are no reform Jews or rationalists in Jerusalem. 
They are all orthodox, but mostly poor and dependent on 
the charity of their brethren in Europe. Many come to 
be buried on holy ground, and outside of the Eastern 
wall on the slopes of the valley of the Kedron, which are 
covered with tombstones. The Jewish quarter is squalid 
and forbidding. It ought to be burned down and built 
anew. The Polish Jews look dirty and shabby, and wear 
curls, which give them an effeminate appearance. The 



2 50 BIBLE LANDS, 

Hebrew language is used in Jerusalem as a conversational 
language, and there only. The Spanish and Portuguese 
Jews, whose ancestors emigrated after their expulsion 
from Spain under Isabella I. (i497)) still speak a Spanish 
patois. The German, Austrian, Polish, and Russian Jews 
speak a corrupt German. Baron Rothschild and Sir 
Moses Montefiore have done much for them by building 
hospitals and lodginghouses. They ought to buy Pales- 
tine and administer it on principles of civil and religious 
liberty. 

Every traveller ought to visit the " Wailing Place of 
the Jews" at the cyclopean foundation wall of the tem- 
ple, just outside the enclosure of the mosque El Aska 
and near " Robinson's Arch/' There the Jews assemble 
every Friday afternoon and on festivals to bewail the 
downfall of the holy city. I saw on Good Friday a large 
number, old and young, male and female, venerable rabbis 
with patriarchal beards and young men kissing the stone 
wall and watering it with their tears. They repeat from 
their well-worn Hebrew Bibles and Prayer-books, the 
Lamentations of Jeremiah .and suitable Psalms (the 76th 
and 79th). " O God, the heathen are come into thine inher- 
itance ; thy holy temple have they defiled ; they have laid 
Jerusalem on heaps. . . . We are become a reproach to 
our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are 
round about us." Dr. Tobler gives the following speci- 
men of responsive laments from the litanies of the Kara- 
ites 



* Topographic von yerusalem^ Vol. I., page 629. Similar litanies see 
in Dr. Potter's " The Gates of the East^^^ (New York, 1876), page 245 seq. 



RELIGION IN JER U SALEM, 2 5 1 



For the palace that lies desolate, 
R. We sit in solitude and motcrn. 
For the walls that are overthrown, 
R. We sit ht solitude and mourn. 
For our majesty that is departed, 
R. We sit in solitude and mourn. 
For the priests who have stumbled, 
R. We sit in solitude and mourn. 
For our kings who have despised Him, 
R. We sit in solitude and mourn. 

Another prayer : 

We pray thee, have mercy upon Zion, 
R. Gather the childre7t of Jerusalem, 
Make haste, make haste, Redeemer of Zion, 
R. Speak to the heart of yerusalem. 
May beauty and majesty surround Zion, 
R. Incline mercifully toward yencsalem. 
May the kingly rule over Zion soon appear, 
R. Comfort those that mourn over yerusalem. 
May peace and delight enter Zion, 
R. And may the branch sp7vut in yerusalem. 

The keynote of all these laments and prayers was 
struck by Jeremiah, the most pathetic and tender-hearted 
of prophets, in the Lamentations — that funeral dirge of 
, Jerusalem and the theocracy. This elegy^ written with 
sighs and tears, has done its work most effectually in 

Tobler (page 626) gives an interesting account of the celebration of the 
destruction of Jerusalem, in the synagogue, on the 9th of the month of 
Ab. 



252 



BIBLE LANDS. 



great public calamities, and is doing it every year on 
the ninth of the month of Ab (July), when it is read 
with loud weeping in all the synagogues of the Jews, and 
especially at Jerusalem. It keeps alive the memory of 
their deepest humiliation and guilt, and the hope of final 
deliverance. The scene at the Wailing Place was to me 
touching and pregnant with meaning. God has no doubt 
reserved this remarkable people, which, like the burning 
bush, is never consumed, for some great purpose before 
the final coming of our Lord. 



MOUNT MORIAH. 



253 



CHAPTER XXV. 

MOUNT MORIAH, AND THE DOME OF THE 

ROCK, 

The Prophecy of Christ— The Noble Sanctuary— The 
Mosque of Omar — The Wonderful Rock — The 
Dream of Mohammed— The Final Judgment. 

"Verily, I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone 
upon another, that shall not be thrown down." 

This prophecy of our Lord (Matt. 24 : i, 2) has been 
literally and fearfully verified. The Jewish temple has 
disappeared, and the massive and venerable substructions 
still remaining only tell the sad tale of its former site 
and glory. The Roman conquerors would naturally 
throw down the stones from the upper parts, and these 
stones accumulating would protect the lower parts from 
utter demolition. 

Mount Moriah, or, as the Moslems call it, "the Haram 
esh-Sherif," that is, "the Noble Sanctuary/' is the pride 
of Jerusalem ancient and modern, and (as Badeker says) 
"one of the most profoundly interesting spots in the 
world." It is to Jerusalem what the Acropolis is to 
Athens. Jews and Mohammedans regard it with equal 
reverence.' The Jews deplore its loss and desecration, 
and lament and weep every Friday outside of the sacred 
enclosure; the Moslems glory in its possession, and till 

Bible Lands. 22 



254 



BIBLE LANDS. 



after the Crimean war strictly excluded all foreigners 
from its precincts. For three hundred years, from Con- 
stantine to the conquest of Omar (637), and during the 
reign of the Crusaders (1099 till 1187), it was occupied 
by the Christians. 

The Haram area is an artificial oblong plateau, paved 
with marble, ornamented with fountains, cypresses and 
other trees, and enclosed by supporting walls, which are 
built up from the declivities of the hill on three sides 
(the east, the south, and the west), and give it the ap- 
pearance of a gigantic fortress. The masonry of the 
walls is of different periods, Solomonic, Herodian, Sara- 
cenic, and modern. Recent excavations have brought 
to light masons' marks on the foundation stones in 
Phoenician letters, which illustrate the fact that Hiram, 
king of Tyre, furnished Solomon with cunning workmen 
for the Temple (i Kings 5 ; 2 Chron. 2). The eastern 
wall, toward the Valley of Jehoshaphat, is 1,530 feet 
long, and between the Golden Gate and the southeast 
angle there are 1,018 feet The Golden Gate" is a 
double portal with semicircular arches profusely orna- 
mented. It is not the Beautiful Gate,"* for this was 
probably in the inner fore-court of the temple. It may 
correspond to the ''closed gate" of Ezek. 44: 1-3, but 
in its present shape it seems to be of Byzantine origin. 
The gate is closed, but the Mohammedans believe that 
the Christians will finally pass through it. Both Jews 
and Mohammedans localize here the scene of the last 
judgment, and it may be that our Lord, standing on the 
* Acts 3 ; 2j -Qv^a upata^ which was mistranslated into the Latin au7'ea. 



«1 




' MOSQUE OF OMAR 



THE DOME OF THE ROCK. 



255 



slope of Mount Olivet opposite this gate, described the 
gathering of all nations before his judgment-seat. The 
immense subterranean vaults in the southeast corner, of 
uncertain workmanship, are called the Stables of Sol- 
omon," and in the masonry of the piers are still seen the 
rings by which the Crusading kings and the knight tem- 
plars fastened their horses. There may possibly be some 
foundation for the name, as Solomon's palace is supposed 
to have stood on the south side of the temple area. 

The excavations of Captains Wilson and Warren 
have shown that Moriah is honeycombed by a vast sys- 
tem of caverns, wells, and reservoirs, so that Jerusalem, 
even during the longest siege, was in no want of water. 
We are reminded of the prophetic visions of the pure 
waters of life which shall flow from the temple of God 
to water the earth (Ezek. 47:1-12; Zech. 13:1; 14:8; 
Rev. 22 : i), and of the Psalmist's perennial river, the 
streams whereof make glad the City of God (Psa. 46:4). 

On this beautiful platform once stood the Temple of 
Solomon in all its glory ; then the humbler Temple of 
Zerubbabel ; and last the Temple of Herod, which was 
in progress of construction at the time of Christ, and 
was destroyed by the Roman army a. d. 70. An attempt 
to rebuild the Jewish temple under Julian the Apostate, 
who hoped thereby to refute the prediction of Christ, 
proved a disastrous failure. 

In its place rises now the Mosque of Omar," or the - 
"Dome of the Rock" (Kubbet es Sakhra), as gracefully 
as St. Sophia in Constantinople or St. Peter's in Rome. 
It is the most prominent, as well as the most beautiful 



256 



BIBLE LANDS, 



building in the whole city. It stands out conspicuously 
in every picture of Jerusalem. It can be seen best from 
the Kedron Valley and Mount Olivet. It is the second 
mosque of Islam, inferior only to that of Mecca, as Jeru- 
salem is its second sacred city, and called The Holy " 
(El Kuds). It stands on an irregular base of ten feet in^ 
height, and is approached by three flights of steps which 
terminate in elegant arcades called Scales (Mawazin), be- 
cause, according to the tradition, the scales of judgment 
are to be suspended here. The mosque is an octagonal 
building, each side measuring 67 feet, and is surmounted 
by a lofty dome with a gilt crescent. The whole structure, 
including the platform, is 170 feet high. The interior 
has two cloisters separated by an octagonal course of 
piers and columns. The dome is supported by a circle 
of four great piers, aud twelve Corinthian columns. In- 
scriptions from the Koran ornament the walls. The 
building is of uncertain origin ; some trace it to Omar, 
some to Justinian ; James Ferguson, the famous histo- 
rian of architecture, identifies it with the church of Con- 
stantine, and the rock beneath with the tomb of Christ ; 
he also locates Mount Zion on Mount Moriah instead of 
the western hill. But in this novel and startling view 
he has had few, if any, followers. During the Crusades 
the building was used as a Christian cathedral. 

The most interesting object in the Mosque of Omar 
is the naked, grayish limestone Rock (Sakhra) over which 
it is built and from which it has its name. It is the cen- 
tral peak of the rugged hill. It stands right beneath the 
dome, is 57 feet long, 43 feet wide, and rises from one to 



THE DOME OF THE ROCK, 257 

five or six feet above the mosaic marble pavement. It 
is enclosed by an iron railing with arrow-headed points 
and metallic candlesticks. It is nowhere mentioned in 
the Bible, but first in the Talmud. It marks, according 
to Jewish tradition, the centre of the earth. Here Mel- 
chizedek offered sacrifice. Here Abraham was ready to 
slay his son Isaac. Here was the altar of burnt-offering, 
or, according to others, the place of the Ark of the Cov- 
enant in the Holy of Holies. Here David and Solomon 
prayed. On this Rock was inscribed the unspeakable 
name of God (the " Shemhamphorash "), which Jesus 
was able to read and from which he derived his power of 
performing miracles. 

The Mohammedans have adopted these Jewish fables 
and improved on them. They make as much of the 
Rock on Mount Moriah as of the Black Stone in Mecca. 
They believe that it descended from heaven and is sus- 
pended in the air ; and that it attempted to follow the 
prophet on his ascension to Paradise, but was kept back 
from its native quarry by the angel Gabriel, who left his 
large hand-prints as a memorial of the miracle! Moham- 
med himself, in the twelfth year of his mission, spread 
the absurd story that he made a night-journey from 
Mecca to Jerusalem.* Tradition adds that from Jerusa- 
lem he ascended on his miraculous steed El-Borak, ac- 
companied by Gabriel, through the seven heavens to the 
throne of God, and was brought back again to Mecca the 

* Koran, Sura 17 (Arabic text), entitled the "Night Journey:" 
Glory be to Him who carried his servant by night from the sacred tem- 
ple of Mecca to the temple that is more remote, whose precinct we have 
blessed, that we might show him of our signs," 

22* 



2S8 



BIBLE LANDS. 



same night. It was probably a mere dream of Moham- 
med, but Abu Bekr vouched for its reality, and it in- 
creased the prophet's credit as having conferred with 
God himself, like Moses, and contributed much to his 
success. Absurd and incredible as many of the Chris- 
tian legends are, the Talmudic and Mohammedan legends 
are far more absurd and incredible. Mohammed declared 
that one prayer at the Sakhra is better than a thousand 
elsewhere. Beneath it is the Well of Souls " (Bir el- 
Arwah) and the gate to Hades. At the last day the 
Black Stone of Mecca will come to the gray Rock of Je- 
rusalem, and then the blast of the trumpet will sound 
from here to summon all mankind in the Valley of Je- 
hoshaphat. Mohammed, assisted by Jesus, will take his 
seat on a round projecting porphyry column, which is 
shown in the east wall of the Haram, to execute judg- 
ment. God will then erect his throne on the Rock. 

Before these Mohammedan dreams are fulfilled the 
crescent will once more be replaced by the cross, and the 
Mosque of Omar and the neighboring Mosque el-Aksa 
will be turned into Christian churches. 



CAL VAR K 



259 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

CALVARY AND THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY 
SEPULCHRE, 

Calvary—The Evangelists on the Site of the Cruci- 
fixion—The Epistles and the Ante-Nicene Wri- 
ters—The Discovery of the Traditional Site by 
Constantine or Helena— The Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre— A Museum of sacred Curiosities— Un- 
certainty of the Tradition— Different Views— The 
probable Site— The true Calvary Omnipresent in 
the Church. 

" And bearing the cross for himself, he went out into the place 
called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha : 
where they crucified him, and two others with him, on either side 
one, and Jesus in the midst." John 19 : 17, 18. 

Calvary, or Golgotha, is the most sacred spot in Je- 
rusalem and in the world. Who would not like to touch 
the place of the crucifixion, the burial, and the resurrec- 
tion of the Son of God ! But is it really under the roof 
of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or anywhere else 
in Jerusalem } or has it been buried and hidden from 
profanation and idolatry } 

From the accounts of the Evangelists we learn the 
following particulars, which must control this contro- 
versy : The place of the crucifixion was, i, outside of the 
limits of the city (John 19:17; Matt. 28:11; Mark 
15 : 20, 21 ; Luke 23 : 26 ; comp. Heb. 13 : 12) ;* 2, near 

* Even now, as in the days of the Romans, all executions take place 
outside of the gate, though liot in any particular locality, Captain War- 



26o 



BIBLE LANDS. 



the city (John 19 : 20) ; 3, near a thoroughfare and ex- 
posed to the gaze of the multitude (Matt. 27 : 39 ; Mark 
15 129; John 19:20) ; 4, on a conical or globular eleva- 
tion (hence the name, Place of a Skull," or Calvary, 
Matt. 27 : 33 ; Mark 15 : 22 ; John 19:17; Luke 23 : 33), 
though not on a mountain or hill (as the monastic desig- 
nation ''Mount Calvary" would imply) ; 5, near a garden 
and a sepulchre hewn in a rock, where Christ was buried 
(Matt. 27:60; John 19:38-42). The close proximity, 
therefore, of Golgotha and the Sepulchre in the Church 
of the Holy Sepulchre is no objection to its authenticity. 

In the Epistles of the New Testament there is no allu- 
sion to the locality of the crucifixion, except the inci- 
dental notice that it took place outside of the gate" 
(Heb. 13:12). The apostles evidently fixed their eyes 
of faith and love upon the great facts themselves, and on 
the ever-living Christ in heaven. 

It is natural to assume that the early Christians 
resorted to those places for meditation and prayer, but 
there is no trace of any church or altar there during the 
first three centuries. Jerusalem was totally destroyed by 
Titus A. D. 70 ; the Christians had fled before to Pella ; 
the Jews were killed or sold into slavery ; and heathen 
idolatry for some time took the place of Jewish fanati- 
cism. Hadrian, after the insurrection of Bar-cochba 
(137), razed again every trace of Judaism, and built on 
the ruins a heathen city under the name of ^lia Capito- 
lina. It is also reported by Eusebius and Jerome, who, 

ren (Undergroimd, Jerusalem^ p. 353) witnessed a most barbarous execu- 
tion of a Bedawin murderer near the Jaffa Gate. 



CAL VAR Y. 



261 



however, lived two hundred years later, and who do 
not quite agree, that Hadrian erected a temple of Jupiter 
Capitolinus on the vacant spot of the temple, and his own 
statue on the place of the Holy of Holies, and a statue of 
Venus on the site of Calvary (as in cruel mockery of the 
Divine Love that died for the sins of mankind). This 
report does not necessarily mean that the spot of the 
crucifixion was known to Hadrian, but simply that it 
was believed to be such by the writers after its discov- 
ery ; otherwise Eusebius would contradict himself.* 

Eusebius traces the discovery of the site of the cru- 
cifixion, which, he says, ^^had for so long a time been 
hidden beneath the earth," to Constantine, in conse- 
quence of " a miracle beyond the capacity of man suf- 
ficiently to celebrate or even to comprehend." After 
removing the profane obstructions of the heathen, the 
emperor erected on the sacred spot a church as a me- 
morial of the victory of Christianity. It was solemnly 
dedicated a. d. 335, in the presence of a great council of 
bishops, among whom was Eusebius himself.f The his- 
torian here makes no mention whatever of the discovery 
of the cross, nor of the agency of St. Helena, the mother 
of Constantine, although he ascribes to her the erection 
of the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, and the 
Church of the Ascension on Mount Olivet. But The- 
odoret, Socrates, Sozomen, and other writers of the fifth 
century, unanimously ascribe the discovery, or, as it is 

* Prof. Krafft [Topographie yeriisalems^ p. 236) solves the contradic- 
tion by a distinction between the general locality and the particular spot 
of the sepulchre ; the former was known, the latter discovered by a miracle. 
But Eusebius makes no such distinction. f Vita Const. ^ III., 25-40. 



262 



BIBLE LANDS. 



characteristically called, the "invention" of the cross 
and the sepulchre to this pious lady, who, at the age of 
nearly eighty years (a. d. 326), visited Palestine. After 
a difficult search, she found three crosses, and, separated 
, from them, the tablet bearing the inscription of Pilate. 
The true cross of Christ was ascertained, at the sugges- 
tion of Bishop Macarius, by a miracle of healing which 
its touch produced on a noble lady of Jerusalem lying 
sick of an incurable disease ; whereupon Helena caused 
a splendid church to be erected over the spot where the 
crosses were found. 

The conflicting accounts may perhaps be adjusted by 
the assumption that Constantine carried out the wishes 
of his mother. But at all events the traditional site of 
Calvary rests on a double miracle, which is in keeping 
with the credulity of that age, but can hardly stand the 
test of sober criticism. Eusebius and his continuators 
are by no means either very accurate or very scrupulous 
or impartial historians. 

Since that time the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 
which was no doubt first built either by Helena or her 
son, but has undergone several destructions and recon- 
structions, has been generally regarded as the place of 
Christ's crucifixion and burial. And whether its claims 
be well founded or not, we cannot approach it without 
profound interest and a certain religious awe. It is for 
Catholic Christians what the temple on Mount Moriah 
was for the Jews, and what the Dome of the Rock is for 
the Mohammedans. Genuine or not, it has been for 
many centuries a centre of devotion, the very holy of 



CALVARY. 



263 



holies of the largest portion of Christendom. But if the 
old temple under the guardianship of the Jewish hier- 
archy was turned from a house of God into a ''house of 
merchandise " (John 2:16) and a "den of thieves " (Matt. 
21 : 13), we need not be surprised if this sanctuary also 
has been grossly perverted. Before we enter the church 
we meet a multitude of profane traffickers selling all 
sorts of eatables and religious wares. Armed Turkish 
guards stand at the gate and in the vestibule, at the 
request of the Latin Christians, to protect them against 
the violence of their Greek fellow-Christians. The rival 
churches and sects which jointly own the property (the 
orthodox Greeks own the largest and richest chapel, the 
.Copts the smallest and poorest) jealously guard their 
spots, and vie with each other in outward zeal for their 
common Lord, while they would gladly expel their breth- 
ren. We would not forget the divisions in the Protes- 
tant camp, nor the unavoidable dangers of family quar- 
rels under the same roof, but the impression nevertheless 
is very humiliating, and dampens the zeal of devotion. 

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a collection of 
chapels and altars of different ages, and a unique muse- 
um of religious curiosities from Adam to Christ. It is 
lit up with innumerable lamps, and pervaded with the 
perfume of incense. In the centre of the rotunda, be- 
neath the dome, is the small marble Chapel of the 
Holy Sepulchre (at Easter lit with some forty gold 
and silver lamps), where pilgrims from every land in a 
ceaseless stream are going in and out, offering candles 
and kneeling before and kissing the empty tomb of 



264 



BIBLE LANDS, 



Christ. In front of it is the Angel's Chapel (the vesti- 
bule to the Sepulchre), with the piece of marble which 
the angel removed from the sepulchre, and on which he 
sat. A few steps from it is the Stone of Anointment, 
a broad marble slab honored with innumerable kisses. 
We are also shown the place from which the women 
witnessed the anointing of the Saviour. Twenty steps 
higher is the Chapel of Golgotha or Mount Calvary. 
There they show us three holes, only five feet apart from 
each other, in which the crosses of Christ and the two 
robbers were inserted, and the cleft in the rock made by 
the earthquake (Matt. 27:51). Close by is the Chapel 
of the Agony of Mary bearing her Son on her knees. 
The Chapel of the Finding of the Cross by St, Helena, 
three hundred years after the event, lies deeper ; so also 
the Chapel of the Raising of the Cross. Almost every 
incident in the history of the passion and resurrection is 
commemorated by chapels, altars, or crosses, up stairs 
and down stairs, in nooks and corners, and everywhere. 
The very spots are pointed out where Christ was bound ; 
where he was scourged ; where his friends stood afar off 
during the crucifixion ; where his garments were parted ; 
where he appeared to his mother after the resurrection, 
and to Mary Magdalene as the gardener. Not only so, 
but in the same church are contained the subterranean 
rock-tombs of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, the 
tombs of Adam (Eve is ignored), Melchisedek, John the 
Baptist, and "the centre of the world 

* Jerusalem is actually, though not geographically, the centre of Pal- 
estine. Rabbinical writers compare the world to an eye, the ocean to the 



CALVARY. 



265 



It is an amazing tax on our credulity that we should 
believe in the identity of these sites. The whole thing is 
overdone and thus almost undone. To be sure, millions of 
Catholics, Greek and Roman, have no more doubt about 
the genuineness of these localities than they have about 
the crucifixion and resurrection itself, and deem it pro- 
fane to call in question a tradition so old, venerable, and 
general. But a Protestant who puts his Bible above all 
the traditions of men, and the worship of God in spirit 
and in truth above all forms and ceremonies, has certain- 
ly a right to demand good reasons for all this. The 
Church has never claimed geographical and topographical 
infallibility, and it is no heresy to dissent from any of 
the monkish traditions concerning the holy places in 
Palestine. The one great, we may say the only argu- 
ment in favor of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the 
true Calvary or Golgotha, is the unbroken tradition which 
certainly runs back to the age of Constantine without a 
dissenting voice. This argument has been eloquently 
stated by Chateaubriand and repeated over and over by 
Catholic and Protestant writers. It seems impossible 
that the Christians of Jerusalem should ever have for- 
gotten or lost sight of the place where their blessed Lord 
and Saviour died for our sins and rose for our justification. 
But this assumption is weakened by the absence of any 
definite information about the locality in the New Testa- 
ment and the writers before Constantine, by the utter 

white of the eye, Palestine to the pupil, the temple to the image in the 
pupil of the eye. This idea passed into the Church. Jerome calls Jerusa- 
lem " the navel of the earth " {timbilicus terrce), 

Bible Lands. £3 



266 



BIBLE LANDS. 



demolition and desecration of the city under Titus and 
again under Hadrian, and by the fact that the discovery 
of the site of Calvary is ascribed by all ecclesiastical 
writers of the Nicene and post-Nicene age to a stupen- 
dous miracle^ v/hich was entirely unnecessary if the site 
was known before. 

But admitting the miracle of the discovery, there is an 
almost insurmountable topographical objection against 
the traditional site. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
lies within the present wall of the city ; while the cruci- 
fixion, according to infallible authority, took place outside 
of the old city. The old city was much larger and more 
densely inhabited than the present, and consequently 
more likely to include the site of that church than to ex- 
clude it. This is the antecedent probability. The cham- 
pions of the tradition therefore are bound to prove that 
the location of the city has greatly changed, and that the 
second wall of Josephus (which ran circuitously from the 
Gate Gennath, i. e., the Garden Gate, near the tower of 
Hippicus to the fortress Antonia on the north of the Tem- 
ple-area) excluded the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.* 
This has not been proved. It is possible, but very im- 
probable. Diligent search for wall foundations has failed 

* All that Josephus says of the second wall is this [Bell. Jiid. V. 4, 2) : 
" The second wall had its beginning from the gate called Gennath^ which 
belonged to the first wall ; and, encircling only the northern quarter of 
the city, it extended as far as the tower Antonia." All three walls (as de- 
scribed by Josephus in the same chapter of the fifth book) began at the 
tower of Hippicus, near the present Jaffa Gate. The second wall proba- 
bly ran northward from the citadel to the Latin Convent and to the Da- 
mascus Gate, where traces of an ancient wall were found. See Robinson's 
Later Researches (1856), page 219. 



CALVARY. 



267 



so far.* And even if the sepulchre could be shown to 
have been outside of the second wall of the ancient city, 
it is certainly far within the third wall which was built 
by Herod Agrippa only ten or eleven years after the 
crucifixion, to enclose a large suburb (twice as large as 
the old city) that had gradually extended beyond the 
second wall. The words '^without the gate" (Heb. 
13:12) and "nigh to the city" (John 19 :2o), could scarce- 
ly mean "within the suburbs.'' 

The first who ventured to question the traditional 
site was a German bookseller, Jonas Korte, who visited 
Jerusalem in 1738. A hundred years later Dr. Robinson 
of New York subjected the matter to a calm critical ex- 
amination and came reluctantly to the conclusion, mostly 
from topographical considerations, that the Church of 
the Holy Sepulchre cannot be genuine.f His view was 
adopted by Dr. Titus Tobler (an indefatigable Swiss 
investigator who was four times in Palestine, in 1835, 
1845, 1857, and 1865), Herm. Hupfeld (1861), Fr. Arnold 
(1864), John Wilson, Barclay, Bonar, Fergusson, Porter, 
Meyer, Ewald and other Protestant scholars. On the 
other hand, the old tradition has found learned and able 
advocates not only among Roman Catholics as De Vogue, 
De Saulcy and Sepp, but also among Protestants, espe- 

* The ruins near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which have been 
supposed by G. Williams and others to be fragments of the second wall, 
have proved to be portions of a church; and the old arch called the Gate 
Gennath is a comparatively recent building. See Recovery of Jerusale^n^ 
pages 9 and 208. 

t See his argument in "Biblical Researches," Vol. I. 407-418; HI. 
254-263 (Boston ed. of 1856), and in "Bibliotheca Sacra" for August and 
November, 1847, 



268 



BIBLE LANDS. 



cially Rev. George Williams (for many years chaplain of 
the Anglican Bishop Alexander in Jerusalem),* Prof. 
William Krafft, of Bonn (1845), Ritter (1852), the Prus- 
sian Consuls in Jerusalem, Drs. Shultz (1845) ^^^d Ro- 
sen (1863), by Von Schubert, Raumer, Furrer, F. A. 
Strauss, Olin, Lewin, and others. The argument has 
been pretty well exhausted on both sides by Robinson 
and Williams. The excavations of the Palestine Explo- 
ration Fund have thrown no new light on the subject, and 
unless some new excavation should determine the course 
of the second wall of the ancient city, opinions will con- 
tinue to be divided on the question of the Holy Sepul- 
chre. The opponents of the traditional site have so far 
the best of the topographical argument, but labor under 
the disadvantage of being unable to point definitely to 
another locality ; for Fergusson's view,f which locates 
Calvary on Mount Moriah, is untenable, because Moriah 
must have been within the city limits. 

Were I to look for the site of the true Calvary in the 
present Jerusalem, untrammelled by ecclesiastical tradi- 
tion and controversy, I would find it on a skull-shaped, 
rocky, isolated elevation, a few minutes' walk north of 
the Damascus Gate, not far from the Grotto of Jeremiah, 
where the prophet, according to tradition, is said to have 
written his Lamentations. This elevation is about half a 
mile from the site of the fortress Antonia (Pilate's judg- 
ment-hall), and the same distance from Mount Zion (Her- 

* See his " The Holy City," London, second edition, 1849, 2 vols. 
He is the chief opponent of Robinson, and apologizes in the preface to 
the second edition, for his unnecessary severity. 

t See his article Jerusalem in Smith's "Bible Dictionary." 



CAL VAR Y. 



269 



ocVs palace). It is on the highway to Damascus; it is 
encircled by rock caverns and tombs. It thus answers 
all the requirements of the gospel narrative better than 
any other locality I have seen around the city. It is be- 
lieved to be the site of the true Calvary by Bishop Go- 
bat (as I was informed), and by Mr. Conrad Schick (who 
kindly conducted me over a large part of the city). Mr. 
Schick (from Wiirtemberg), an architect and superinten- 
dent of an industrial missionary school, is from long res- 
idence thoroughly posted in Jerusalem topography, and 
several times honorably mentioned in the reports of the 
English Exploration Fund, and in Badeker's Handbook. 
He has constructed the best models of Jerusalem, of the 
Holy Sepulchre, and of the Tabernacle. He holds his 
view of the site of Calvary with becoming modesty. For 
in the absence of all tradition, and in view of the many 
changes which the surface of the city has undergone, it 
would be presumptuous to venture on categorical asser- 
tions.^ 

Perhaps it is all the better that we should not know 
the precise spot. God buried Moses out of the sight of 
men and out of the reach of idolatry. The earthly Calvary 
may be hidden from our view, that, instead of cleaving to 
earth, we may look to heaven w^here Christ is enthroned 
in glory. There is a better Calvary, which, like the man- 
ger of the Nativity and the spot of the Ascension, has a 
spiritual omnipresence in Christendom, and is imbedded 

* A similar view was, independently, defended by the late Fisher 
Howe of Brooklyn, who, however, locates Calvary a little farther east on 
the Grotto of Jeremiah. See his .pamphlet, "The True Site of Calvary," 
New York (Randolph's), 187 1. 



270 



BIBLE LANDS, 



in the memory and affection of every believer. The true 
cross is not the piece of wood found or invented by 
St. Helena and fraudulently multiplied a hundredfold all 
over Christendom, but that spiritual tree of life which 
bears healing fruit to every age and country, and to which 
the beautiful lines of Venantius Fortunatus apply : 

" Faithful cross ! above all other 

One and only noble tree ! 
None in foliage, none in blossom, 

None in fruit thy peers may be. 
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron, 

Sweetest weight is hung on thee." 



MOUNT OLIVET, 



271 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

MOUNT OLIVET 

Jerusalem built on Hills and surrounded by Hills- 
Olivet in the Gospels — Crossing the Kedron — 
Gethsemane— The Spot of the Ascension— Beth- 
any — Martha and Mary — The Resurrection of 
Lazarus— Farewell to Bethany. 

There are "mountains round about Jerusalem." 
Like Rome, Jerusalem is built on hills and surrounded 
by hills. It is 2,500 feet above the Mediterranean, and 
3,700 feet above the Dead Sea. From the east and from 
the west there is a steady ascent to it ; hence the phrase 
"to go up to Jerusalem." It stands on the mountain 
ridge which runs from north to south and forms the 
backbone of Palestine. It is built upon Mount Zion in 
the southwest and the lower Mount Moriah in the east. 
These two hills are separated by the Tyropoeon or Cheese- 
mongers' Valley (which is nearly filled up with rubbish). 
Both are surrounded by ravines, which unite with the 
Tyropoeon in the south, Zion by the valley of Hinnom, 
Moriah by the valley of the Kedron or Jehoshaphat. The 
best place from which to study the panorama for orienta- 
tion is Mount Olivet, with the Bible in the right hand 
and Josephus in the left. There you see the holy city in 
her lonely melancholy grandeur, with her walls and towers, 
her churches, mosques, and dome-roofed houses. It is the 
saddest, and yet the most impressive view in the world. 



2/2 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Mount Olivet, or the Mount of Olives (called by the 
Arabs ''Jebel et-Tur"), is separated from Jerusalem by 
the deep and narrow valley of the Kedron. It over- 
tops the Temple hill by 300 feet, and rises 2,724 feet 
above the Mediterranean Sea. Whatever doubt may 
attach to Christ's presence in any of the man-made 
streets of modern Jerusalem, which lies on the ruins of 
older Jerusalems, we are sure of the locality of this God- 
made mountain, which has indeed been denuded of its 
forests and verdure, and looks barren and neglected, yet 
has not lost its identity, and cannot be changed in its 
essential features. It is very prominent in the closing 
scenes of our Saviour's ministry. In Bethany, on the 
eastern slope of Olivet, he had his most intimate friends, 
Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, and performed his last and 
greatest miracle f from Mount Olivet he made his tri- 
umphal entry into Jerusalem ;f here he spent the nights 
intervening between the entry and his passion, and re- 
turned every morning to teach in the temple descend- 
ing from this mountain, he wept over the ungrateful city 
and foretold her fearful doom ;§ to it he repaired in the 
night of his betrayal ;|| from it he ascended to heaven to 
take possession of his throne.^ And there he reigns 
ever since, at the right hand of the Father, corporeally 
absent, but, according to his solemn promisef * spiritually 

* John II : I ; 12 : i seq. ; comp. Luke 10 : 38-42. 
t Matt. 21 : 1 ; Mark ii : i ; Luke 19 : 29-38. 
X Luke 21 : 37. 

§ Luke 21 141-44; comp. ver. 37. 

II John 18 : 1 ; Matt. 26 : 36 ; Mark 14:22; Luke 22 : 39. 
*ir Luke 24 : 50 ; Acts 1:12. ** Matt. 28 : 20. 



MOUNT OLIVET. 



273 



and dynamically omnipresent in his Church, which is "his 
body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all,"* until 
he shall visibly descend from heaven, even as he ascend- 
ed.f 

When Jesus passed out of St. Stephen's Gate (the 
ancient Fish-gate) down the ravine, and crossed that 
black winter torrent called Kedron {i. e., the Black 
Brook), which is formed by the winter rains, but is entire- 
ly dry in summer (even in April as far as my experience 
goes), it was far more than Caesar s crossing the Rubicon 
for the military conquest of the world ; it was the pas- 
sage which decided the moral and eternal redemption of 
the world. David, betrayed by Ahithophel, one of his 
body-guard, took the same course in his flight from his 
rebellious son Absalomf — a remarkable parallel, the typi- 
cal import of which Jesus himself pointed out.§ In the 
garden of Gethsemane (i, e.. Oil-press), at the foot of 
the Mount of Olives, he was overwhelmed with sorrow 
and anguish, and endured the mysterious agony with all 
the powers of darkness, in the stead and in behalf of a 
fallen race. Here he was betrayed by the Judas-kiss, 
which he anticipated and made meaningless. Here the 
heathen garrison and the Jewish temple guard combined 
under the lead of the traitor, against the one unarmed 
Jesus ; and yet, made cowards by conscience and over- 
awed by the superhuman majesty of Jesus, like the pro- 
fane traffickers in the temple, they fell to the ground 
before his " I am He!" The same words which cheered 
his trembling disciples on the stormy lake and after the 

* Eph. I ; 23. t Acts I : II. % 2 Sam. 15 : 23. § John 13 : 18. 



274 



BIBLE LANDS. 



resurrection, are here words of terror to his enemies, and 
will be on the day of judgment. 

There is no evidence to prove, but no good reason to 
deny, the identity of the spot now shown as Gethsem- 
ANE. Some think it is too near the city and the thorough- 
fare for a place of retirement in that dangerous and dis- 
mal night. We reach it by an easy walk through St. 
Stephen's Gate over the dry bed of the Kedron. It lies 
on the slope of Mount Olivet, and is in the possession of 
the Franciscans, It is a garden with seven or eight ma- 
jestic olive-trees, which are perhaps the oldest and cer- 
tainly the most venerable trees in the world, though of 
course not of the time of our Lord — for Titus cut down 
all the trees round the city during the siege. But they 
may have sprouted from the roots of the original trees. 
The garden is enclosed by a new wall, and kept in very 
good order. A kind old Franciscan monk gave us olive 
leaves and flowers from this ever-memorable spot. The 
Greek Gethsemane is a short distance north of the Latin, 
and marked by a rude chapel in the rock. The two tra- 
ditions may be reconciled by supposing that the Geth- 
semane of the Greek Church was the interior part of the 
garden, to which the Saviour retired for prayer. 

From Gethsemane we ascend in a few minutes to the 
height of Mount Olivet, so famous for the crowning 
scene in the earthly life of our Lord. St. Helena built 
the Church of the Ascension on one of the three sum- 
mits. Other churches and convents were built by the 
Crusaders to memorialize particular events. The moun- 
tain is now barren and neglected, in the hands of the 



MOUNT OLIVET. 



275 



Moslems. A few scattered olive-trees only are left to 
justify its name. A little care and cultivation would 
make it very attractive. It affords the finest view of 
Jerusalem and Mount Moriah, while in the east the 
mountains of Moab, parts of the Dead Sea, and the 
Jordan are clearly seen. Here and on the neighboring 
Mount Scopus the Roman army was encamped during 
the siege. 

Tradition fixes the Ascension on the middle summit, 
in full sight of Jerusalem, but in plain contradiction to 
the narrative of Luke, who locates it near Bethany, on the 
retired eastern slope of the mountain.* No importance, 
of course, can be attached to the mark of the foot of the 
ascending Jesus, pointed out in the Mohammedan mosque, 
but the mosque is well worth ascending on account of 
the magnificent view it affords over the most historic of 
all the historic regions on earth. A short distance from 
it a Russian lady erected a fine dwellinghouse. A little 
south of it the French Princesse Latour d'Auvergne, a 
relative of Napoleon III, built, in 1868, a church in the 
style of a campo santo over the spot where Christ is said 
to have taught his disciples the Lord's Prayer, and caused 
this Prayer of prayers to be inscribed on thirty-one slabs 
in as many different languages, as a symbol of the unity 
and universality of Christian devotion. A monument in 
white marble perpetuates her memory. West of this 

* Luke 24 : 50 : " And he led them out as far as to (ewf dq) Bethany," 
or, according to the true reading, " over against or towards Bethany " 
(ewf TT/Qoc rriv BTjT^avlav). In Acts i, Luke says nothing of the locality, but 
presupposes his previous statement. Mark (16:19) likewise is silent 
about the locality of the ascension. 



276 



BIBLE LANDS. 



church we visited the chapel commemorating the com- 
position of the Apostles' Creed, according to a tradition 
not older than the fourth century, and long since disproved 
as untenable. This Creed of creeds is apostolic indeed 
in spirit and power, but not in form, and gradually grew 
up from the inner life of the ancient Church. n 

From the top of Mount Olivet it is an easy descent 
to Bethany on its southeastern declivity. It can also be 
reached by the road to Jericho which leads round the 
mountain. It is only two miles* from Jerusalem. It is 
now a miserable village of about forty hovels, inhabited 
by beggarly Mohammedans. They call it, in honor of 
Lazarus, El-Azariyeh," and show the house of Martha 
and Mary, the house of Simon the leper, the tower of Laz- 
arus, and his reputed sepulchre, a wretched cavern in the 
limestone rock, like a cellar, with about twenty-five steps, 
to which we descend by the dim light of a taper. There 
is no probability of the genuineness of these particular 
localities ; on the contrary, the grave of Lazarus was some 
distance from the village. 

Bethany is pleasantly located, has good water, and 
is surrounded by cultivated spots and numerous fig, 
olive, almond, and carob trees. It was once a home of 
peace, inhabited by three children of peace and visited 
by the Prince of peace. It was the sacred spot of the 
friendship of Jesus. Here he revealed more of his ku- 
majt nature than elsewhere. Here he enjoyed the hos- 
pitality of Martha, the practical housekeeper, and allowed 
her contemplative sister Mary to sit at his feet and to 

* Fifteen furlongs, John 11 : 18. A furlong or stadium is 125 paces. 



MOUNT OLIVET. 



277 



perform, in the foreboding presentiment of his death, 
that touching service of devoted love for which she v^ill 
be commemorated to the end of time. Here he wept tears 
ot friendship over the grave of Lazarus whom he loved." 
The eternal Son of God dissolved in tears ! How far 
more natural, lovely, and attractive is a weeping, sympa- 
thizing Saviour, than a cold, heartless stoic ! How near 
these tears bring him to every child of sorrow and grief ! 
But here also he revealed himself as the Resurrection 
and the Life, and wrought the greatest of miracles by the 
creative words, " Lazarus, come forth !" This act is a seal 
of his divinity and a pledge of our future resurrection. 
There is no escape from the plain, circumstantial narra- 
tive of John, one of the eyewitnesses. We must admit 
the truth, or resort to the disgraceful hypothesis of impos- 
ture, which explains nothing, but perverts the supernatu- 
ral miracle into an unnatural monstrosity. Spinoza said 
to his friends, if he could believe the resurrection of Laz- 
arus, he would dash to pieces his entire system of phi- 
losophy, and embrace without repugnance the common 
faith of Christians. This is sound reasoning. If Christ 
could raise the dead to life, he could easily perform the 
lesser miracles of healing, and must truly have been the 
eternal Son of God. 

We left Bethany as we left other spots in Palestine, 
for ever consecrated to memory. It is a melancholy 
shadow of the past, but it may again become, at some 
future day, a delightful suburban retreat of domestic 
happiness and peace. 



Bible Lauds. 



24 



278 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER XXVIIL 

THE CONVENT OE MAR SABA, 

From Jerusalem to the Dead Sea— The Convent of 
Mar Saba— A wonderful Building Perched on 
the Rocky Precipice- The Curiosities— The Li- 
brary—St. Sabas and St. John of Damascus- 
Mar Saba and Mount Sinai— The Monks. 

On a beautiful April day after Easter we leave Jeru- 
salem on an expedition to the Dead Sea. We pass 
through the Via Dolorosa and St. Stephen's Gate into 
the dry valley of the Kedron, and ride over rocky hills to 
the Convent of Mar Saba, which we reach in three hours. 
The valley of the Kedron is barren and desolate, wild and 
romantic. Our new dragoman, Mr. M. Ward, is an intel- 
ligent, self-educated American, who came in early youth 
with the unfortunate colony of Rev. Mr. Adams to Jaffa, 
and remained with Mr. Rolla Floyd after the colony 
broke up. They are, from their intelligence and familiar- 
ity with the Bible, the very best dragomen in Palestine. 

Mar Saba is a fortified Convent in the desert of Ju- 
daea, built on the side of a rocky precipice, 590 feet above 
the ravine of the Kedron. It is the most curious struc- 
ture in all Palestine. Walls, towers, buttresses, chapels, 
and chambers, are perched upon rock terraces, like 
eagles' nests. On the opposite cliffs we see a number 
of caves, once the abode of hermits, now of jackals, bats, 
and owls. The whole has a singularly wild and roman- 



THE CONVENT OF MAR SABA. 279 



tic, but utterly desolate aspect. This strange labyrinth 
encloses St. Saba's sepulchre in the centre of a paved 
court beneath a dome-shaped mausoleum (but without 
his body, which has been removed to Venice), his cave- 
dweUing (once a lion's den), the tomb of St. John of Da- 
mascus, a church, chapels, and cells, a grotto filled with 
skulls of martyred monks, and small gardens in the 
courts, with a few olive and fig trees. 

The convent has considerable historical interest. It 
was founded in the fifth century by St. Sabas, one of the 
greatest saints of the Greek Church, whose empty tomb 
and cave-dwelling are still the chief objects of devotion. 
It was the residence of St. John of Damascus, who in the 
eighth century wrote here his great work on the Ortho- 
dox Faith, as St. Jerome wrote his Vulgate in a cell in 
the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. John of Da- 
mascus is the standard divine, we may say the Thomas 
Aquinas, of the Greek Church, and his views on the sin- 
gle procession of the Holy Spirit were embodied in the 
compromise of the Old Catholic Bonn Conference of 
1875. Of this, however, the monk who showed us his 
humble study and tomb knew nothing at all. He could 
not even tell whether his books were in the convent. 
Through the happy reproductions of John Mason Neale 
some of the resurrection odes of this great divine have 
been naturalized in our churches : 

" 'T is the day of resurrection ! 
Earth, tell it out abroad," 

and, 



28o 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Come, ye faithful, raise the strain 
Of triumphant gladness." 

The library is said to be very valuable; and the 
monks, since they found this out, after a visit of Prof. 
Tischendorf, are very reluctant to show it, and yet they 
are too ignorant to make any use of it. Although I had 
a special permit from the Greek patriarch at Jerusalem, I 
had some difficulty to get access to it. The usual printed 
order "for the inspection of the sacred laura of St. Saba'* 
was accompanied by a postscript from the hand of the pa- 
triarch, or his secretary, to admit us also into the library.'* 
The library is locked up in a little dark room, with one 
grated window, above the chapel, and contains about five 
hundred bound manuscript volumes in Greek, mostly pa- 
tristic works and copies of the Gospels. Some books are 
beautifully written on parchment. I had too little time 
to examine them ; but a biblical and patristic scholar 
who could spend a few weeks here, or could secure the 
loan of the books, through the patriarch of Jerusalem, 
might find valuable treasures, if we are to judge from the 
good fortune of Dr. Tischendorf at the Convent of Mount 
Sinai. There are there several copies of the Greek Gos- 
pels and Epistles as reported by Scholz and Coxe,^ which 
may reward a careful examination. Coxe saw twenty 
copies of the Gospels, four of them being of the tenth 
century, five copies of the Epistles of Paul, and one of 
the Apocalypse (Scholz mentions two). 

* See Rev. H. O. Coxe's Report to He?' Majesty s Government of the 
Greek Ma7iuscripts yet remaining in the Libraries of the Levant^ 1 8 58, and 
Scrivener's Introduction to the Criticisfn of the New Testament^ 2d edition, 
pp. 208, 209, 236, 249. 




PLAIN ER-RAHAH, AND CONVENT OF ST. CATHARINE. 




MAR SABA CONVENT, AND THE DEAD SEA. 



THE CONVENT OF MAR SABA, 281 

Mar Saba and the Convent of Mount Sinai resemble 
each other. Both belong to the Orthodox Greek Church ; 
both lie in a barren wilderness ; both are forts, as well as 
convents, and passed through many vicissitudes during 
the struggles between Christianity and Mohammedan- 
ism. But in ignorance and stupidity the monks of 
Mar Saba (now sixty in number) excel even those of 
Mount Sinai. It would be unfair, of course, to judge 
the Greek Church from these convents, which seem to 
be used in part as penal establishments for refractory 
monks. But my general impression is that the Greek 
clergy and monks are more ignorant and superstitious 
than those of the Latin Church. I met on the road an 
accomplished Anglican clergyman, of ritualistic tendency, 
and longing for union with the venerable Greek sister 
Church. But the witnessing of the disgraceful fraud of 
the holy fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the 
Greek Easter eve, and his visit to Mar Saba, seemed to 
have cooled his zeal. On being asked how he liked this 
famous convent, he shrugged his shoulders and com- 
plained bitterly that he was not admitted to the library. 
The monks gave us cistern-water, which we could hardly 
drink, and sour bread and sour soup, which we could not 
eat. Murray's Handbook*' says that Mar Saba is one of 
the richest convents in Palestine; but the monks told us 
that they are very poor, especially since the Russians 
have withdrawn their support. They are all vegetarians, 
and forbidden to taste any meat. No woman has ever 
been admitted to this sacred enclosure. It would be a 
sin to do so. In this respect the convent of Sinai is 

24^ 



282 



BIBLE LANDS. 



more liberal and civilized. I could converse only with two 
monks. One spoke broken French, another Greek. The 
latter read a little Greek pamphlet, printed in Athens, 
which contained a pretended Letter of Christ, found in 
Gethsemane, on the grave of the Holy Mother of God/' 
It is, of course, a pious fraud. On asking him why he 
did not rather read the Gospel, which contained the gen- 
words of Christ, I was told that this tract was shorter 
and just as edifying. Among other things, he told me 
that the greatest fault of the English and Americans was 
that they did not worship the Virgin Mary, who was next 
to God. I said, in reply, that Christ, not Mary, was our 
Saviour, and that faith in Christ alone could save us ; to 
which he reluctantly consented. 

We spent a night in the convent in a humble room, 
sleeping on the floor and disturbed by vermin, though 
no more than in Jerusalem and Jericho. Cleanliness is 
no part of monastic holiness, and the proverb, Cleanli- 
ness is next to godliness,'' did not originate in the East. 
We attended the chapel service at 4 a. m., and saw the 
monks taking the daily communion. They had an ear- 
lier service at 2 a. m. It consists of reading prayers and 
chanting. If perfect isolation from the world and all the 
comforts and refinements of life could save a soul, these 
monks would go to heaven. But there is a surer and a 
better way. 



THE DEAD SEA, 



283 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE DEAD SEA, 

From Mar Saba to the Dead Sea— A Salt Bath— A 
Sea of Death— Description by Lieut. Lynch — 
Physical Features— Sodom and Gomorrah— Lo- 
cation of the Vale of Siddim— The Pillar of Salt 
—Comparison of the Dead Sea with the Salt 
Lake in Utah— Asiatic Stagnation and Ameri- 
can Progress— Modern Researches of the Dead 
Sea. 

Leaving Mar Saba at five in the morning, after at- 
tending the service of the monks, we ride over sterile 
hills and ravines, and reach at ten o'clock the Dead Sea, 
or, as it is called in the Bible, the Salt Sea.* 

Our minds look back to the destruction of Sodom 
and Gomorrah, and forward to the still more terrible fu- 
ture judgment of those cities of Galilee which witnessed 
the miracles of the Son of God, and refused to believe. 
We remember Lot's wife, who, looking back to the burn- 
ing cities, in disobedience to the Divine command, was 
turned into a pillar of salt.f 

* Genesis 14:3 (7 ■^oKaaaa ruv akuv in the Sept., mare sails in the 
Vulg.). It is also called the Eastern Sea, Ezek. 47 : 18 ; Zech. 14 : 8, in 
distinction from the Mediterranean, and the Sea of the Plain, Deut. 
4 : 49. Josephus calls it the Asphaltic Lake, the Arabs Bahr Lut. 
i. e., the Sea of Lot. The name Dead Sea (dalaaaa veKpd) originated 
with Greek writers, from exaggerated notions of its deadly climate, and 
became current in the Church since Eusebius and Jerome. In the New 
Testament it is nowhere alluded to, though Sodom and Gomorrah are 
mentioned. 

t Gen. 18 and 19; Deut. 29:23; comp. Matt. 11:24; 2 Pet. 2:6; Jude 7. 



284 



BIBLE LANDS. 



As soon as we have rested ourselves a little on a log 
of wood — for there is no human habitation nor any kind 
of shelter on the shore — we undress ourselves and take 
a bath in the lake. We can sit, lie, and swim on the sur- 
face of the heavy water without difficulty. At first we 
feel refreshed after the hot ride ; but the spray soon be- 
comes painful to the eye and irritating to the skin, and 
we feel the unpleasant sensation till we wash off the 
pungent crust of salt by another bath in the fresh waters 
of the Jordan. 

The Dead Sea, as viewed from a distance, is not so 
forbidding as one would suppose. It presents rather a 
mournful picturesqueness. Its surface is calm and 
glassy, blue and transparent, and reflects the hills of 
Moab, with their brown and red rocks, broken clefts and 
ravines. Nor is it a region of absolute death, as was for- 
merly believed. Swallows, partridges, storks, and ducks 
have been seen flying over it, and at a little distance 
from the shore are found fresh fountains and streams, 
shrubs, jungles of reeds, stunted acacias, and palms. 
There are even some traces of former cultivation, which 
explain the Biblical allusion to " vineyards of Engedi"* — 
the wilderness on the western shore where David sought 
refuge from the persecution of Saul. Jewish Essenes 
and Christian hermits once lived in that region. The 
table-lands on the mountains of Moab, which extend 
along the eastern shore, are well watered, fertile, and 

* Cant. I : 14, "As a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi." 
Camphire is the Al henna of the Arabs, a whitish, fragrant flower, hang- 
ing in clusters like grapes. 



THE DEAD SEA. 



285 



productive. Although the soil is badly tended," says 
Professor Palmer from personal exploration, by the few 
and scattered^Arab tribes, who inhabit it, large tracts of 
pasture-lands and extensive cornfields [grainfields] meet 
the eye at every turn. Ruined villages and towns, bro- 
ken walls that once enclosed gardens and vineyards, re- 
mains of ancient roads — everything in Moab tells of the 
immense wealth and population which that country must 
have once enjoyed."* 

But, with these qualifications, the Salt Sea is truly a 
sea of death and an accursed lake. No fish can live in 
it ; no tree grows on its banks ; its air is like the blast 
of a furnace; its water is offensive: ''Water, water ev- 
erywhere, but not a drop to drink." The shores are bar- 
ren and scorched, and incrusted with a thin coating of 
salt, in which horse and man sink at every step. Some 
dead driftwood, carried down by the Jordan, lies scat- 
tered on the shore. It would be difficult to find a more 
desolate and God-forsaken region on the earth. Even 
the wilderness of Sinai has some redeeming features in 
its grandeur and occasional oases : 

" But here, above, around, below, 
In mountain or in glen, 
Nor tree, nor plant, nor shrub, nor flower, 
Nor aught of vegetation power, 

The weaned eye may ken ; 
But all its rocks at random thrown, 
Salt waves, bare crags, and banks of stone." 

In this judgment all travellers agree. Lieutenant 
Lynch calls more particularly the southern shore, where 

* The Desert of the Exodus^ Part II., p. 473, seq. 



286 



BIBLE LANDS. 



the catastrophe of the cities of the plain is usually loca- 
ted, "a scene of unmitigated desolation. On one side, 
rugged and worn, was the salt mountain of Usdum, with 
its conspicuous pillar, which reminded us at least of the 
catastrophe of the plain ; on the other were the lofty and 
barren cliffs of Moab, in one of the caves of which the 
fugitive Lot found shelter. To the south was an exten- 
sive flat intersected by sluggish drains, with the high 
hills of Edom semi-girdling the salt plain where the Is- 
raelites repeatedly overthrew their enemies ; and to the 
north was the calm and motionless sea, curtained with a 
purple mist, while many fathoms deep in the slimy mud 
beneath it lay imbedded the ruins of the ill-fated cities 
of Sodom and Gomorrah. The glare of light was blind- 
ing to the eye, and the atmosphere difficult of respira- 
tion. No bird fanned with its wings the attenuated air 
through which the sun poured his scorching rays upon 
the mysterious element on which we floated, and which 
alone, of all the works of its Maker, contains no living 
thing within it."* 

Aside from its forbidding character and hostility to 
the life of man and animal, the Dead Sea is a most re- 
markable phenomenon. It is the lowest depression on 
the face of the earth. It lies about 1,300 feet beneath 
the Mediterranean Sea; it receives the waters of the 
Jordan six miles south of Jericho, and has no outlet, and 
can have none, as the ground rises on its southern shore; 
the evaporation is sufficient to carry off the supply of 

* Narrative of the U, S, Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead 
Sea, p. 310, 



THE DEAD SEA. 



287 



water from without. It forms an oval, and measures 
about forty miles in length and nine in breadth. It is 
nearly the size of the Lake of Geneva, but differs from 
it as a lake of Gehenna from a lake of Paradise. Its 
lowest depth is 1,308 feet. The water is heavily charged 
with salt ; its specific gravity is greater than that of any 
other water known. The body floats on the surface like a 
log of wood. The ordinary sea-water has about four per 
cent, of salt ; the Dead Sea water more than twenty-six 
per cent. 

The formation of the lake basin is supposed by s.ome 
modern writers to be wholly due to the action of the 
water. It seems to be a pool left by the ocean on its 
retreat. 

This is not in conflict with the narrative in Genesis, 
ch. 19, for this ascribes the overthrow of Sodom and Go- 
morrah, not to volcanic action of the earth, but to the 
raining of brimstone and fire out of heaven." Nor is it 
anywhere stated in the Bible that the Dead Sea is the 
result of this catastrophe, as the popular view supposes. 
The lake is no doubt older than those cities, and was 
also smaller than at present, extending perhaps only to 
the peninsula El Lisan, but by some convulsion of na- 
ture it was made to overflow its former limits. Dr. Rob- 
inson supposes that a conflagration and earthquake, or 
volcanic action combined, consumed and scooped out the 
surface of the plain itself, so that the waters of the lake 
rushing in, spread themselves out over the once fertile 
tract. 

The location of the vale of Siddim, or the cities of 



288 



BIBLE LANDS. 



the plain, is a matter of dispute. Tlie traditional view, 
which is advocated by Dr. Robinson and Lieut. Lynch, 
places them at the southern end of the lake, while some 
modern writers remove them to the northern end on the 
east of the Jordan. 

The former view dates from Josephus and Jerome, 
who speak of Zoar, to which Lot fled and which was near 
Sodom (Gen. 19:20), as being at the southern extremity 
of the present lake (probably in the mouth of the Wady 
Kerak).* It is supported by the following arguments : 

1. Abraham saw the rising smoke of the doomed cities 
from Mamre, or a hill-top near Hebron (Gen. 19:27, 28). 
This was impossible if the cities were on the northern 
border. 

2. The Bible informs us (Gen. 14 : 10) that the vale of 
Siddim near the Salt Sea was full of slime-pits," that is, 
wells of bitumen or asphaltum, which burns like oil. On 
the south shore, and there only, masses of bitumen 
encrusted with sulphur have been found. f Perhaps the 
houses of those doomed cities were built of bituminous 

* The traditional site of Zoar is at the ruins of Dra'a, some little dis- 
tance from the lake, on the road to Kerak, in a spot abounding with palm- 
trees. It was an Episcopal see under the archbishop of Petra, and was 
represented in the Council of Chalcedon (451). 

t "After the earthquake of 1834, a large quantity of asphaltum was cast 
upon the shore near the southwest part of the lake, of which one tribe of 
Arabs brought about sixty kimtars (cwt.) to market, and a large amount 
was purchased by the Frank merchant^ of Beirut. Again, after the great 
earthquake of January, 1837, which destroyed Safed, a large mass of bitu- 
men (one said like an island, another like a house) was discovered floating 
in the sea, and was driven aground on the west side, not far from Jebel 
Usdum. The neighboring Arabs swam off around it, and cut it up with 
axes, so as to bring it ashore." Robinson, Physical Geography of the Holy 
Land^ pp. 220, 221. 



THE DEAD SEA. 



2«9 



limestone and cemented with bitumen, so that when igni- 
ted by lightning from heaven they would burn like *'a 
furnace" (Gen. 19:27, 28). 

3. Recent explorations have shown the southern part 
of the lake to be shallow, and nowhere more than twelve 
or thirteen feet deep, while the northern part has a depth 
of over 1,300 feet. 

On the other hand, Canon Tristram pleads for the 
northern site, especially on the ground of his alleged but 
doubtful identification of the Biblical Zoar with the ruins 
of the Arab village Zi'ara, on the brow of a spur of Mount 
Nebo, at the head of the Dead Sea. ^He maintains that 
the ''plain," must have been in the "ciccar" (circle) or 
''ghor" of the Jordan, as that region, when selected by 
Lot, was well w^atered, '' even as the garden of the Lord, 
like the land of Egypt" (Gen. 13 : 10-12).'^ But this may 
have applied just as well to the southern shore. '' Even at 
the present day," says Dr. Robinson, " more living streams 
flow into the south end of the sea than are to be found 
so near together in all Palestine ; and the tract, although 
now mostly a desert, is still better watered through these 
streams and by the many fountains, than any other dis- 
trict throughout the whole country." 

We adhere therefore to the traditional view. The 
Arab legend of the catastrophe of the vale of Siddim, 

* The Land of Moab pp. 343, seq.\ The same view was advocated by 
Grove in Smith's Bible Diet, (in articles Sodom and Zoar), by Captain 
Wilson (in Quarterly State7?ient of the Palestine Exploration Fnnd, No. 4), 
and Professor Palmer [The Desert of the Exodus, Part IT., p. 480). 
Grove's articles are ably disputed by Dr. Samuel Wolcott in Haskett and 
Abbot's edition of Smith's Bible Diet. 

Bible Lauds. 25 



290 



BIBLE LANDS, 



which agrees substantially with the Biblical narrative, 
likewise locates Usdum (Sodom) and the pillar of salt at 
the southern extremity. The Arabs call this pillar " Bint 
Sheikh Lot/^ L e,, "Lots Wife." "Bint," says Palmer, 
properly means " daughter," but in Moab it is used for 
" wife," perhaps in lingering reminiscence of the crime 
of Lot's daughters (Gen. 19 : 30-38). Josephus professes 
to have seen such a pillar in his day. Lieut. Lynch 
claims to have discovered it in 1848 at Usdum, on the 
southern shore, and thus describes it " Soon after, to 
our astonishment, we saw on the eastern side of Usdum, 
one-third the distance from its northern extreme, a lofty 
round pillar, standing apparently detached from the gen- 
eral mass, at the head of a deep, narrow, and abrupt 
chasm. We immediately pulled in for the shore, and Dr. 
Anderson and I went up and examined it. The beach 
was a soft, slimy mud encrusted with salt, and a short 
distance from the water, covered with saline fragments 
and flakes of bitumen. We found the pillar to be of solid 
salt, capped with carbonate of lime, cylindrical in front 
and pyramidical behind. The upper or rounded part is 
about forty feet high, resting on a kind of oval pedestal, 
from forty to sixty feet above the level of the sea. It 
slightly decreases in size upward, crumbles at the top, 
and is one entire mass of crystallization. A prop or 
buttress connects it with the mountain behind, and the 
whole is covered with debris of a light stone color. Its 
peculiar shape is doubtless attributable to the action of 



* Narrative of the United States Expedition, p. 307. See the picture 
of the Pillar of Salt^ p. 308, 




THE DEAD SEA. 



291 



the winter rains. The Arabs had told us in vague terms 
that there was to be found a pillar somewhere upon the 
shores of the sea." F. de Saulcy saw in the same local- 
ity several vast, disconnected, pyramidical columns of 
salt, and supposes that Lot's wife was crushed and cov- 
ered by one of them.* But this is hardly consistent with 
the plain meaning of the narrative. Canon Tristram, on 
his second visit, found a considerable change which the 
short period of eight years had made ; several isolated 
fragments of salt, or "Lot's wives," had been washed 
away, and other pinnacles had been detached by the 
rains to take their places. He describes that region as 
*'the most desolate and dreary corner of that desolate 
shore, without one trace of vegetable life, not even a stray 
salsola or salicornia to relieve the flat sand-beds."t Pal- 
mer locates the Bint Sheikh Lot farther north on the 
eastern shore, above the projecting promontory El Lisan 
(The Tongue), and describes it as a tall isolated needle 
of rock, which does really bear a curious resemblance to 
an Arab woman with a child upon her shoulders," and 
made him almost believe that he had seen the prophet's 
wife peering sadly after her perished home in the un- 
known depths of that accursed sea.J 

These curious salt pillars served to keep alive for so 
many ages the local tradition of the disastrous event. 

The Dead Sea is not the only inland sheet of salt 
water. In Utah Territory which I recently visited (June, 

* Narrative of a yonrney round the Dead Sea ift 1850 and 1851. Lon- 
don, 1853. Vol. II., p. 269. 

t The Land of Afoak New York, 1873. ^P- 52-54- 
X The Desert of the Exodus^ Part II., pp. 478-480. 



292 



BIBLE LANDS. 



1878), there is likewise a " Salt Lake/' without an outlet, 
and connected with a sweet water lake, Lake Utah," 
by a turbid and rapid stream which the Mormons bap- 
tized Jordan." An analysis of the waters of both gives 
the same results. A bath in the Salt Lake has the same 
effect, but is facilitated by an hotel and a bath-house on 
" Lake Point;" while on the Dead Sea there is no conve- 
nience of any kind. The contrasts are remarkable. The 
Salt Lake is much larger, has several mountainous islands, 
and lies 4,200 feet above the sea level, while the Dead Sea 
lies 1,300 feet beneath the Mediterranean. The elevation 
of Lake Utah is 4,482 feet, the depression of the surface 
of the Lake of Galilee 653 feet. The Jordan of Pales- 
tine flows southward, the Jordan of Utah Territory flows 
northward, and supplies water for irrigating the numer- 
ous farms in its valley. 

The greatest difference is the change produced by the 
industry of men. The shores of the Dead Sea and the 
Jordan are a dreary desert, and the roaming Bedawin, 
like the wild Indians of America, disdain agricultural 
labor, preferring to live like animals. When the Mor- 
mons, fleeing from the persecution of their fellow-Amer- 
icans over the unbroken prairies of the West, settled in 
Utah Territory, as their land of promise, thirty-one years 
ago (July, 1847), before its annexation to the United 
States, they found it a desert as wild as Judaea, inhabited 
by bears and savage men ; but in a few years they trans- 
formed it, by irrigation and cultivation, into a fruitful 
garden. A few miles from Salt Lake they built Salt 
Lake City, laid out in wide regular streets, ornamented 



THE DEAD SEA, 293 

by shade-trees, and refreshed by running streams of clear 
water from the mountain. They erected in the midst of 
it a tabernacle of worship which can accommodate ten 
thousand persons, and they are now erecting another 
tabernacle for winter use, and a magnificent temple for 
the performance of baptisms, ordinations, and other ordi- 
nances. They made the surrounding country, after wash- 
ing the alkali out of the soil by irrigation, yield excellent 
wheat, oats, pasture, apricots, apples, pears, plums, and 
vegetables in abundance. They sent out apostles and 
evangelists to foreign countries, and are still attracting 
large numbers of poor and hard-working emigrants from 
England, Wales, Scandinavia, Germany, and Switzerland, 
who desire to improve their temporal condition and to 
become independent producers. Salt Lake City numbers 
already about 25,000 inhabitants (including about 2,000 
Gentiles," so called as distinct from the Mormon 
Saints"), and the whole territory of Utah perhaps over 
125,000, far more than sufficient to make it a sovereign 
State in the Union, if it were not for the peculiar institu- 
tion of polygamy, which is utterly incompatible with our 
Western civilization and the dignity and happiness of 
our home-life. 

The short history of this Mormon settlement proves 
what religious fanaticism, combined with industry, per- 
severance, and artisan skill, can accomplish in spite of 
all difficulties. Mormonism is a modern American edi^ 
tion of Mohammedanism ; but Mohammedan fanaticism 
works only destruction, and the Turkish government 
ruins the countries over which it rules. The Mormons 

25* 



294 



BIBLE LANDS. 



would do a good service both to America and to Turkey 
if they were to emigrate to the Sinaitic Peninsula and 
the shores of the Dead Sea, and teach their Ishmaelite 
cousins a lesson of American industry and thrift. 

But Mormonism deserves no more credit than Amer- 
ican energy and enterprise in the great new West be- 
tween the banks of the Missouri and the Sierra Nevada. 
Denver in Colorado is younger and more flourishing than 
Salt Lake City. The whole American Desert/' which 
stretches north and south of the Union and Central Pa- 
cific railroads over the Rocky Mountains through hun- 
dreds of miles from Nebraska to the boundaries of Cali- 
fornia, is diminishing every year, and wherever water can 
be had from the mountain or the river, the sage-brush and 
buffalo-grass are giving way to villages, cultivated farms, 
and gardens. 

The Dead Sea has for the first time been partially explored by 
Seetzen in 1807 ; then by Costigan, July, 1835 ; by G. H. Moore 
and W. G. Beke, March, 1837; by Lieut. Molyneux, Sept., 1847, 
but with very little result. 

The first thorough navigation and exploration was made in 1848 
by W. F. Lynch, of the United States Navy. His Narrative^' is, 
next to the Biblical Researches of Dr. Robinson, and The Land 
and the Book of Dr. Thomson, the most important American con- 
tribution to the Palestine literature. Lieutenant Lynch, in com- 
mand of an expedition fitted out at the expense of the United 
States government, sailed with two metallic boats of great strength 
and buoyancy, one of copper and one of galvanized iron, which had 
to be transported with great labor from the shore of the Mediter- 
ranean to the Lake of Tiberias, down the innumerable windings 
and dangerous rapids of the Jordan to the Dead Sea, and spent 

* Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jorda?i and the 
Dead Sea, Philadelphia, 1849, "i^th ed., 1853. See also his Official Journal of 
the U, S. Expedition to Explore the Dead Sea and the River Jordan^ 1852. 



THE DEAD SEA. 



295 



there full three weeks (from April 18 to May 10, 1848), exploring 
its length, breadth, and depth, at the risk of health. One of his 
companions. Lieutenant Dale, lost his life. Science, as well as re- 
ligion, has it heroes and martyrs. 

In 1850 and 1851 F. de Saulcy, a member of the French In- 
stitute, visited the region of the Dead Sea, and published a narra- 
tive which appeared in an English translation at London, 1853, in 
two vols. 

Lieut. Van de Velde of Holland followed in 1852, and pro- 
duced one of the best maps of the Holy Land. 

In 1864 the French duke De Luynes, and in 1865 the Wiir- 
temberg geologist. Dr. Oskar Fraas, explored the Dead Sea. 
Fraas disputes the theory of the formation of the lake by volcanic 
convulsions, and traces it to the power of the mountain torrents, 
but he admits the possibility of the Biblical account of the destruc- 
tion of populous cities in the plain. 

Professor E. H. Palmer and Tyrwhitt Drake completed 
their desert journey, under the auspices of the Palestine Explora- 
tion Fund, in 1870, by passing through the land of Moab to the 
northeast end of the Dead Sea, where they crossed the Jordan. 

In 1872 Canon Tristram explored the comparatively unknown 
land of Moab, and claims, among the results of his journey, the re- 
covery of several ancient sites. He says : The careful verifica- 
tion of Machasrus, the scene of John the Baptist's imprisonment 
and martyrdom ; the very interesting discovery of Zoar(?), with the 
valuable illustration it affords of the careful accuracy of the Scrip- 
tural narrative in the minutest details ; the finding of a palace of 
Chosroes, with its sumptuous architecture, and the ray of light it 
casts upon one of the most obscure periods of later Roman his- 
tory — these certainly were enough to reward the most sanguine ex- 
plorer. Even apart from these principal discoveries, there is 
scarcely a passage in Holy Writ, in which Moab is mentioned, 
which was not in some degree illustrated during the journey; and 
the glowing prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, the allusions of 
Amos and Zephaniah, the story of the wars of Sihon, of Jephthah, 
and of Joab, must ever be read with deepened interest by those 
who have noted their marvellous coincidences with the state of the 
country as we now see it."* 

* The Land of Moab J New York (Harper's), 1873, Preface. 



296 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE JORDAN. 

From the Dead Sea to the Pilgrim's Bathing-Place 
—A Bath in the Jordan— Character of the Jordan 
— Its Navigation— Rob Roy— The Historic Associ- 
ations — The Bathing of the Pilgrims— The Moun- 
tains of Moab — The Death of Moses — Jericho— 
The Fountain of Elisha— Quarantania, the Mount 
of Temptation — Arrival at Bethel— Three Com- 
IDanies of Tourists. 

A FATIGUING ride of an hour and a half in the trop- 
ical sun over a barren plain brings us from the Dead Sea 
to the river Jordan at the bathing-place of the pilgrims, 
the traditional site of Christ's baptism. The river is 
here 80 feet broad and 9 feet deep. The banks are cov- 
ered with oleanders, tamarisks, willows, and balsam-wood. 
The water is muddy, the current very swift. There are 
no conveniences for bathing except a strong rope tied to 
the trees. Holding on to this rope, I took a most re- 
freshing bath beneath the shadow of the trees. After 
the salt bath in the lake of death it was like a bath of 
regeneration. I immersed myself ten times, anii felt so 
comfortable that I almost imagined I was miraculously 
delivered from rheumatism. I have plunged into many 
a river and many a lake, and into the waves of the ocean, 
but of all the baths that in the Jordan will linger longest 
in my memory. 

After a light lunch I rested a couple of hours on the 
western bank, while my companions crossed over to the 



THE JORDAN. 



297 



soil of Moab. My thoughts were lost in the historic 
associations of the sacred stream. 

The Jordan is the chief and the only important river 
of Palestine, as the Nile is the one river of Egypt. It 
traverses the whole length of the country from north 
to south, as the Nile traverses Egypt in the opposite 
direction ; but with the exception of the luxuriant jun- 
gle of shrub and wood on the narrow banks, where 
lions and other wild beasts from the desert formerly 
sought shelter, it has no effect upon the surrounding 
desolate country, while the Nile spreads life and fer- 
tility for miles to the right and the left. It receives 
no tributaries of any importance except the Yarmuk 
(Hieromax) and the Jabbok from the east. The for- 
mer is not mentioned in the Bible; the latter is con- 
nected with Jacob's mysterious conflict of prayer on his 
return to Canaan.*^ Taking its rise in three or more pe- 
rennial fountains at the base of Mount Hermon, the Jor- 
dan passes through the rich plain of Huleh into the 
waters of Merom, and flows twelve miles farther on into 
the Lake of Tiberias ; emerging from this, it plunges in 
twenty-seven rapids down a fall of 1,000 feet, and at last 
empties its turbid yellow waters, which resemble those 
of the Tiber, into the Dead Sea, where it finds its grave. 
For the old idea that it flows into the Red Sea is a 
physical impossibility, and has long since been aban- 
doned. It traverses at least 200 miles from the Hasbei- 
yah source to the Dead Sea, while the direct distance is 
only 115 or 120 miles. It is the most tortuous and also 



298 



BIBLE LANDS, 



the most rapid river in the world. Its rapidity gives 
force to its name, "the Flowing/Vor "the Descender/'* 
Its total fall is 3,000 feet, or 15 feet per mile of its chan- 
nel, 25 feet per mile of its direct distance. The Rhine 
in its most rapid course has but one half of the average 
descent of the Jordan. The width of the river varies 
from 60 to 160 feet, its depth from 5 to 12 feet. It is 
never navigated for traffic, nor resorted to for fishing. 
There are no bridges or boats mentioned in the Bible. 
The river was crossed at fords.f It seems at present to 
be of no use at all except as a watering-place for the 
Bedawin, and as a bathing-place for Christian travellers 
and pilgrims. The valley of the lower Jordan, called by 
the Arabs El-Ghor, i, e., the Hollow, is a broad depressed 
plain shut in between two ranges of mountains. Geolo- 
gists suppose that the Ghor was the basin of a vast in- 
land lake. 

The middle and lower Jordan, from the Lake of Gal- 
ilee to the Salt Lake, has been three times navigated in 
a boat, first by an Irishman, Costigan, in 1835, who caught 
a fever and died in the Latin convent at Jerusalem, with- 
out leaving any notes ; then by an English lieutenant, 
Molyneux, in 1847; last, with richer scientific re- 
sults, by Lieutenant Lynch, of the United States Navy, 

* p1^> 'Iop(5aT^?7f, from to go down^ to flow. In the original it is 
always used with the article, except in tw^o passages, while King James' 
Version, contrary to English usage, strangely omits it. The Arabs call 
the river el-Urdun, but more frequently esh-Sheriah, "the Watering- 
Place." In like manner the German Rhine comes from rinnen^ to flow. 

t I Sam. 13:7; 2 Sam. 10:17. The "ferry-boat" of the English 
Version, 2 Sam. 19 : 18, was only a raft to carry over David's household. 




JERICHO AND THE DEAD SEA. 



THE JORDAN. 



299 



in 1848. The upper Jordan has been navigated by Mr. 
J. Macgregor, of London, in his famous canoe Rob Roy, 
in 1869. 

The sight of the Jordan is rather disappointing. It 
bears no comparison in majesty and beauty to the great 
rivers of Europe and America. Naaman thought the 
clear rivers of his native Damascus far superior ; yet the 
i\bana and Pharpar could not wash away his leprosy. Its 
chief importance is historic. In this respect the Jordan 
surpasses the Hudson and Mississippi, the Rhine and the 
Danube, and even the Nile. It marks the termination of 
the wanderings of the children of Israel from the banks 
of the Nile, and the beginning of their history as an in- 
dependent nation in their own home. It blends the mem- 
ories of the Old and New Covenants, as the culmination 
of John's testimony and the inauguration of Christ's king- 
dom. Surely/' says Macgregor in the charming ac- 
count of his unique cruise, the Jordan is by far the most 
wonderful stream on the face of the earth, and the mem- 
ories of its history will not be forgotten in heaven."^ 

Here the people of Israel, after their weary pilgrim- 
age, crossed into the land of promise on dry ground by 
a miracle as great as that of the passage of the Red Sea.f 
Here Elijah and Elisha, coming from Jericho, crossed by 
another miracle, the former to ascend on a "chariot of 
fire and horses of fire by a whirlwind into heaven," the 
other to receive the mantle of the greatest prophet in 
Israel.^ Here Naaman of Syria, "dipping himself seven 

* Rob Roy on the Jordan (London and New York), p. 406. 

t Josh. 3 : 1-17. % 2 Kings 2:8-14. 



300 BIBLE LANDS. 

times/' recovered from his leprosy, and his flesh came 
again, like unto the flesh of a little child."* Here John 
the Baptist, the new Elijah, clothed in raiment of camels' 
hair, with a leathern girdle round his loins, baptized the 
people with the water-baptism of repentance, and pointed 
to that higher One who was to baptize them ''with the 
Holy Ghost and with fire/'f Here Jesus himself was 
baptized by his forerunner and inaugurated into his pub- 
lic ministry. Here the heavens were opened, and the 
Spirit of God descended upon him like a dove, and the 
voice of the Father proclaimed him the beloved Son 
with whom he was well pleased. J 

Since that time, bathing in the waters of the Jordan 
has been esteemed a special privilege. The emperor 
Constantine desired it, but died before he could enjoy it. 
Thousands of pilgrims, especially of the Greek Church, at 
the Easter season hope to find in the Jordan ablution of 
their sins, relying more on the magic virtue of the water 
than the cleansing power of the blood of atonement 
through a living faith ; while many others fill their bot- 
tles with the sacred water to use it for baptism, innocent- 
ly or superstitiously, in their distant homes. No scene 
reminds us so forcibly of the multitudinous baptisms of 
John, when "from Jerusalem and all Judaea and all the 
region round about the Jordan" the people "came to 
him confessing their sins," as the bathing of the pil- 
grims. I did not witness it, as Easter Monday had 
passed, but I will copy the description of Lieutenant 
Lynch, who was there in April, 1848 : 

* 2 Kings 5 ; 14. f Matt 3 : i ir \ Matt 3 : 13-17 ; John I ; 32, 33. 



777^ JORDAN. 



30T 



" In all the wild haste of a disorderly rout, Copts and 
Russians, Poles, Armenians, Greeks, and Syrians, from 
all parts of Asia, from Europe, from Africa, and from 
far-distant America, on they came, men, women, and 
children, of every age and hue, and in every variety of 
costume; talking, screaming, shouting, in almost every 
known language under the sun. Mounted as variously 
as those who had preceded them, many of the women 
and children were suspended in baskets or confined in 
cages ; and with their eyes strained towards the river, 
heedless of all intervening obstacles, they hurried eager- 
ly forward, and, dismounting in haste and disrobing with 
precipitation, rushed down the bank and threw them- 
selves into the stream. They seemed to be absorbed by 
one impulsive feeling, and perfectly regardless of the 
observation of others. Each one plunged himself, or 
was dipped by another, three times below the surface, in 
honor of the Trinity, and then filled a bottle, or some 
other utensil, from the river. The bathing-dress of 
many of the pilgrims was a white gown with a black 
cross upon it. Most of them, as soon as they dressed, 
cut branches either of the agnus castus, or willow, and 
dipping them in the consecrated stream, bore them away 
as memorials of their visit The pageant disap- 

peared as rapidly as it had approached, and left to us 
once more the silence and the solitude of the wilderness. 
It was like a dream. An immense crowd of human be- 
ings, said to be 8,000, but I thought not so many, had 
passed and repassed before our tents and left not a ves- 
tige behind them. Every one bathed, a few Franks ex- 

i^iMe Lands, 26 



302 



BIBLE LANDS. 



cepted ; the greater number in a quiet and reverential 
^ manner, but some, I am sorry to say, displayed an ill- 
timed levity/'* 

Dean Stanley likewise gives a graphic account from 
his recollections, and was struck with the apparent ab- 
sence of emotion and enthusiasm, with the decorum, grav- 
ity, and deliberate business aspect of the transaction. 

Beyond the southeastern banks of the Jordan arise 
the blue hills of Moab, which I first saw from the top of 
Mount OUvet. They are intimately connected with the 
history of Israel and the last days of that wonderful man 
of God who had brought his people through the wilder- 
ness to the borders of the promised land, but was not 
permitted to enter it. The meanest of the Israelites 
could cross the Jordan, but the great leader and law- 
giver was excluded for a single offence — -the want of 
faith on one trying occasion.! He was shown from 
Mount Nebo " all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all 
Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and 
all the land of Judah, unto the hinder sea, and the south, 
and the Plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm- 
trees, unto Zoar."J But as the earthly Canaan faded 
from his view, the heavenly Canaan, with brighter skies 
and better soil and nobler rivers and loftier mountains, 
greeted him from afar. Jehovah laid him gently down 
in the sleep of death, and buried him out of sight and 

* Narrative of the United States Expedition^ etc., pp. 261, 262. 
t Numb. 20: 12 ; 27 : 14 ; Deut. 1 : 37 ; 3 : 26, 27. 
% Deut. 34 : 1-6. 



THE JORDAN. 



303 



out of the reach of idolatry, near the land of promise, on 
the border of the wilderness which is his battlefield and 
his monument. There, ''in a valley of the land of Moab, 
over against Beth-Peor," his mortal remains repose, "but 
no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day."* His 
death on earth was the beginning of his life in heaven. 
We must all pass the river of death, but if we die in faith, 
we shall enter into the rest which is reserved for the peo- 
ple of God. 

" By Nebo's lonely mountain, 
East of the Jordan's wave, 
In a vale in the land of Moab, 

There lies a lonely grave. 
And no man knows that sepulchre, 
' And no man saw it e'er, 

For the angels of God upturned the sod, 
And laid the dead man there. 

" That was the grandest funeral 

That ever passed on earth; 
But no man heard the trampling, 

Or saw the train go forth : 
Noiselessly as the daylight 

Comes back when night is done. 
And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek 

Grows into the great sun. 
***** 

* The Mohammedan tradition, which locates the grave of Moses 
between the Dead Sea and Mar Saba, is in plain contradiction to the 
Scripture account of this providential concealment of his tomb. It is 
marked by the Mosque of Neby Musa, and is a great resort of Moslem 
pilgrims at the Easter season. I saw a vast picturesque procession 
passing through St. Stephen's gate in Jerusalem to the valley of the Ke- 
dron and the tomb of the prophet Musa. 



304 



BIBLE LANDS, 



" This was the truest warrior 

That ever buckled sword, 
This the most gifted poet 

That ever breathed a word. 
And never earth's philosopher 

Traced with his golden pen, 
On the deathless page, truths half so sage 

As he wrote down for men. 

" And had he not high honor 1 
The hillside for a pall. 
To lie in state while angels wait, 
. With stars for tapers tall, 
And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes, 

Over his bier to wave, 
And God's own hand, in that lonely land. 
To lay him in the grave ? 

" In that strange grave without a name. 

Whence his uncoffined clay 
Shall break again — O wondrous thought ! — 

Before the judgment-day, 
And stand with glory wrapt around 

On the hills he never trod, 
And speak of the strife that won our life 

With the incarnate Son of God. 

" O lonely grave in Moab's land ! 

O dark Beth-Peor's hill ! 
Speak to these curious hearts of ours, 

And teach them to be still. 
God has his mysteries of grace. 

Ways that we cannot tell ; 
He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep 

Of him He loved so well." 

MRS. C. F. ALEXANDER. 

In riding from the Jordan over the once rich and 
most fertile plain of Jericho we nearly fell among rob- 
bers, like the man in the parable of the good Samaritan ; 




RUINED FOUNTAIN AT JERICHO. 



THE JORDAN. 



305 



there was a fight gomg on between the roaming Beda- 
w^in and the peasants, two of whom were killed, but we 
safely escaped. 

Ancient Jericho was once " the city of palm-trees," 
a stronghold of ancient Canaan, so famous in the con- 
quest of Joshua, then again in the history of Elijah and 
Elisha. It was the winter residence of Herod, who died 
there. In this city Christ brought salvation to the house 
of Zacchseus and restored sight to blind Bartimaeus. It 
has long , since disappeared, and a few mounds of ruins 
only mark its former site. The beautiful gardens of bal- 
sam which Antony gave to Cleopatra, and which Herod 
bought, are no more. One solitary relic of the magnifi- 
cent palm-forest was still standing in 1838, but down 
on the Dead Sea petrified palm-trunks, preserved by the 
salt, may be seen floating as dead memorials of the past. 

Modern Jericho Riha" or Eriha"), some distance 
from the ruins of the old city, is a squalid Arab village. 
A half-ruined tower, occupied by a Turkish garrison, is 
pointed out as the house of Zacchaeus. We took supper 
and lodged in the inn of a Greek Christian, who speaks 
a little English and keeps a fruitful, irrigated garden ; but 
we regretted that we had not slept in the tent, where we 
might have been less disturbed by vermin. 

About thirty minutes from the place is Elisha's 
Fountain, which the prophet healed with salt.* The 
Arabs call it Ain-es-Sultan," the Sultan's Spring. 

From there we pass the next day by the traditional 
Mount of Temptation, called, in commemoration of the 

* 2 Kings 2 ; 19-22. 

26^ 



3o6 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Forty Days* Fast, Quarantania by the Crusaders, "Ka- 
rantel" by the Arabs. Some Abyssinian hermits inhabit 
the caverns in the white rocks and drag out a dull and 
stupid existence. The Evangelists give us no clew to 
the locality of that mysterious, threefold conflict with 
Satan. Christ may, like Moses and Elijah, have gone 
to the Sinaitic wilderness after his baptism in the Jor- 
dan. But Quarantania is sufficiently dreary, desolate, 
and wild for the event. The second Adam had to stand 
a trial and probation in the wilderness for the whole race, 
as the first Adam did in the garden of innocence, but 
with opposite effect, coming out as a conqueror over the 
prince of darkness, and restoring righteousness and 
life. 

After a rough ride of five or six hours we arrive at 
Bethel {i, e.. House of God), now called " Beitin." It is 
nearly the same distance north of Jerusalem, by way of 
Anathoth (Jeremiah's birthplace), Geba, and Michmash. 
It consists of about two dozen Moslem hovels, the ruins 
of a Greek church, a very large cistern, and wild rocks. 
But the spot is hallowed by Jacob's dream of a ladder* 
which reached from earth to heaven. How dreadful is 
this place ; this is none other than the house of God, and 
this is the gate of heaven."* What the patriarch, then 
a homeless wanderer, saw in a vision, is now fully real- 
ized for every child of God since the incarnation, which 
established a constant intercourse between earth and 
heaven, with the angels of God ascending and descend- 
ing.! We rest on a stony pillow, and sing 

* Gen. 28 ; 10-17. t John 1:51. 



THE JORDAN, 



307 



" Though like the wanderer, 

The sun gone down, 
Darkness be over me, 

My rest a stone, 
Yet in my dreams I 'd be 
Nearer, my God, to thee, 

Nearer to thee !" 

At Bethel we joined a larger company of Cook's 
personally-conducted" tourists, and travelled with them 
for the remainder of our tour through Palestine, Syria, 
Constantinople, and Athens, and parted with sincere re- 
gret at Venice. It was a very genial and harmonious 
party, with sufficient variety of culture and taste to make 
it interesting. We had an American Congregational 
and two Irish Presbyterian clergymen, a student of the 
Free Church of Scotland, an English cavalry officer, an 
engineer from Brighton, a graduate from Cambridge, and 
two accomplished ladies from the South of England, who 
could ride on horseback as well as any of the gentlemen. 
During the greater part of the journey we met also every 
evening in neighboring tents, two independent parties, 
the one consisting of an English clergyman with his fam- 
ily, the other of a bishop of the Southern Methodist 
Church (the late Dr. E. M. Marvin of St. Louis), and two 
American ministers. Long shall I remember the de- 
lightful evenings we spent together in the tents, com- 
paring notes on the experiences of the day and uniting 
in prayer and praise. 



3o8 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

SAMARIA. 

The District of Samaria— Its Fertility— Its History— 
The Samaritans and the Jews— Shiloh— Jacob's 
Well— Mount Gerizim and the Paschal Sacrifice 
— Nabulus — The Samaritan- Pentateuch — The 
Ruins of the City of Samaria — The Church and 
Tomb of John the Baptist — Dothan and Joseph 
—The Plain of Esdraelon, Israel's Battlefield— 
Ahab and Jezebel— Shunem and the Shunamite. 

Samaria, the central district of Palestine, presents, 
with its abundance of fresh fountains and rills, green 
pastures and grain-fields, a favorable contrast to the 
rocky and barren soil of Judaea. It was the portion of 
the land assigned to Jacob's best and most beloved son, 
and his children Ephraim and Manasseh. "Joseph is a 
fruitful bough," prophesied the patriarch on his death- 
bed, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches 
run over the wall."* Blessed of the Lord," said Moses 
of Joseph, '^be his land, for the precious things of heav- 
en, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, 
and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun."f 
While the strength of Judah is characterized by the lion 
of the desert, the strength of Ephraim and the sister 
tribe of Manasseh is typified by the bullock and buffaloj 
of the pasture and forest. 

* Gen. 49:22-26. t Deut. 33:13-17. 

% In the English Version "the unicorn," Deut. 33 : 17. 



SAMAR/A. 



309 



Samaria appears first in the history of the patriarchs. 
Abraham, after leaving his home and kindred in Chal- 
daea by divine command, and crossing the Jordan, pitched 
liis tent and built the first altar to Jehovah at Shechem 
before he journeyed southward to Bethel and Hebron.* 
And when Jacob returned from the east with his two 
bands, he bought, with prudent foresight, from the chil- 
dren of Hamor, Shechem's father, " a parcel of a field 
where he had spread his tent, for a hundred pieces of 
money."! Here he sunk, according to tradition,^ his 
famous well, which Jesus transformed into a type of liv- 
ing water, and which remains to this day. He was nat- 
urally unwilling to use the neighboring fountains still in 
the possession of the hostile and depraved Canaanites. 
Here Joseph spent the days of his youth, and here, in 
the parcel of ground his father had purchased, his em- 
balmed remains, which the children of Israel had brought 
up out of Egypt at his dying request, were buried. § A 
white Mussulman chapel near the Well of Jacob still 
marks the tomb of Joseph, and has recently been re- 
stored by Mr. Rogers, the English consul at Damascus, 
in 1868. Gerizim is an older sanctuary than Jerusalem, 
and bears to it a similar relation as Moscow does to St. 
Petersburg. It has been plausibly argued by some that 
Mount Gerizim, and not Mount Moriah, is the place 
where Abraham encountered Melchizedek, the mysteri- 

* Gen. 12 : 6, 7. t Gen. 33 : 19. | John 4 : 12. 

§ Josh. 24:32; compare Gen. 50:25, 26; Exod. 13:19; Acts 7 : 16. 
The Mohammedans claim the body of Josephus in the Machpelah at He- 
bron, and say that it was transported from Shechem. 



BIBLE LANDS, 



ous priest-king, and where he was about to offer the sac- 
rifice of Isaac, the son of promise. Soon after the con- 
quest, according to the command of Moses, Joshua built 
an altar to Jehovah on Mount Ebal, and read to the peo- 
ple the blessings of the law from Gerizim, and the curses 
from Ebal.^ The two mountains are so close together 
that they form a natural sounding-board, and persons 
upon them might easily be heard from one to the other 
over the deep valley below^ which is not more than five 
or six hundred yards wide. The truth of the Scripture 
statement has often been tested. Three of my fellow- 
travellers actually made the experiment, one ascending 
Gerizim, the other Ebal, and the third standing in the 
valley between, and audibly conversed with each other. 
At Shechem Joshua delivered his farewell address to the 
assembled children of Israel, and asked them to choose 
whom they would serve, declaring for himself, As for 
me and my house, we will serve the Lord/'f At Shiloh 
he set up the tabernacle and the ark, which remained 
there during the stormy period of the Judges till the 
death of Eli.J 

Thus Gerizim became a second Sinai, and Shiloh a 
national sanctuary. The Samaritans in their controver- 
sies with the Jews utilized these facts in support of their 
schism, just as the Mohammedans claim the benefit of 
the patriarchal and Mosaic traditions. 

* Josh. 8:30-35; comp. Deut. 11:29; 27:11-13. There is no good^ 
reason to assume, with Jerome, that two other mountains of that name 
near Jericho were meant in these passages. 

t Josh. 24; I, IS 25. I Josh. 18:1; 19:51, etc. 



SAMARIA, 



311 



But David and Solomon made Jerusalem the politi- 
cal and religious centre of the holy land. When the 
kingdom was divided under Rehoboam, Samaria became 
the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. After the Captivity the 
two kingdoms were united again for a brief period under 
Herod the Great. 

In the New Testament Samaria is subordinate to Ju- 
daea and Galilee. Since the exile a mixed race with a 
mixed creed had taken the place of the Ephraimites ; 
the descendants of Joseph and Rachel who had re- 
mained or who returned from exile, intermarried with 
Greek and Syrian colonists. Henceforward the Samar- 
itans were hated and abhorred as semi-heathen here- 
tics and schismatics by the Jews of pure blood, and they 
hated them in turn. Christ broke through the national 
prejudice, held up a despised Samaritan as an example of 
true charity, revealed to a poor Samaritan woman of quick 
wit and light heart, the nature of spiritual and universal 
worship ; and in view of the ripening grain around Jacob's 
Well he predicted a large harvest of converts, which was 
reaped by the apostles.^ But it was in Samaria also that 
Simon Magus, the patriarch of Christian heretics, arose 
and substituted a chaos of Jewish, pagan, and Christian 
notions and practices for the pure gospel of Christ.f 

Let us now briefly sketch the places in Samaria 
which we visited. 

First we come to the few ruins of Shiloh (now called 

* Luke 10 : 33 ; John 4 : 7, seq. ; Acts 8 : 5, seq. 
t Acts 8 : 9, seq. 



312 



BIBLE LANDS, 



" Seilun") by turning a little to the right of the road from 
Bethel to Shechem. It is often mentioned in the Old 
Testament, but nowhere in the New. It lies on a slight 
eminence, and seems to have been selected for the seat 
of the national sanctuary on account of its central situa- 
tion and seclusion. The place is not worth the half 
hour's detour except for its former significance, which it 
lost after the capture of the ark of the covenant by the 
Philistines and the death of Eli and his sons, when his 
daughter-in-law exclaimed, The glory is departed from 
Israel : for the ark of God is taken."* 

Far more interesting, for its New Testament associa- 
tions, is the next place of historic importance, Jacob's 
Well. Here our Saviour sat weary from travelling, 
hungry and thirsty for the salvation of souls. 

" Quaerens me sedisti lassies, 
Redemisti, crucem passus : 
Tantus labor non sit cassus." 

Here he delivered that marvellous discourse with the 
Samaritan woman, which no thoughtful traveller will omit 
to read and to ponder on the spot. The patriarchal mem- 
ories are absorbed in the memories of Him who is greater 
than " our father Jacob," and who is himself and alone 
the never-failing fountain of life eternal. There is no 
reasonable doubt as to the identity of the wellf Jews, 

* I Sam. 4 : 3-22. 

t The objection repeated in Badeker's Handbook (p. 328), that a 
woman of Shechem (Nabulus), where water is abundant, had no need to 
come so far to draw water, is frivolous,' for she may have lived in the vi- 
cinity; and, if not, the very fact of its being Jacob's Well was sufficient 
for a superstitious woman to bring her twice the distance. "Of all the 



SAMARIA. 313 

Samaritans, Mohammedans, and Christians are here 
agreed. The tradition is supported by the landscape, 
which is a living illustration of the narrative of John. 
The well is a natural resting-place on the highroad from 
Jerusalem to Galilee, over which Christ travelled, in the 
grain-field which Jacob bought, and which was then, as 
now, whitening to the harvest, near Joseph's tomb and 
the town of Shechem, and in full view of Mount Geri- 
zim, to which the woman pointed as the true place of wor- 
ship, as the Samaritans of the present day still do. The 
well is sunk in the living rock, 75 feet deep, but covered 
with rubbish and surrounded by the ruins of a Christian 
church, which is mentioned by Jerome, and was destroy- 
ed during the Crusades. The Palestine Exploration Fund 
has recently been furnished with money to restore the 
Well and to make it comfortably accessible alike to Prot- 
estants, Greeks, and Roman Catholics. 

Jacob's Well is only half an hour s distance from 
Nabulus, but before we enter the city we ascend with- 
out difficulty the top of Gerizim, the Mount of Bless- 
ing, the Samaritan rival of Mount Moriah. It rises, like 
its neighbor Ebal, in steep, rocky precipices, directly from 
the narrow valley, 2,700 feet above the Mediterranean, 
and about 800 above Nabulus. Ebal is a little higher. 
Both are naked and sterile, but Gerizim has a "small 
ravine which is full of fountains, fruit-trees, and ver- 
dure.''* Both command a fine view over the fertile and 

special localities of our Lord's life in Palestine," says Stanley, " this is 
almost the only one absolutely undisputed." 

* Robinson, Physical Geography of the Holy Lajid, p. 37. 

27 



314 



BIBLE LANDS. 



well-cultivated valley and plain below, the mountains of 
Gilead in the east, Mount Carmel in the west, and the 
snow-capped Hermon in the north. The summit of Ge- 
rizim is a large plateau, and is the most sacred spot of 
the Samaritan sect. There the law of Moses was pro- 
claimed a second time, and there the Samaritan temple 
was built, about b. c. 330, in which an apostate Jewish 
priest was made high-priest.* It was destroyed in the 
reign of Justinian, about a. d. 529, who built there a for- 
tress and a Christian church. The massive ruins still 
remain. On that summit the Samaritans always put off 
their shoes, towards it they always turn their faces in 
prayer, and to it they come three times a year in solemn 
procession to celebrate the great Jewish festivals — the 
Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. 
It is the only spot on earth where the Jewish paschal 
sacrifice is perpetuated in the primitive fashion, pre- 
scribed in the twelfth chapter of Exodus. Tents are 
erected around a circular pit, where the fire is kindled ; 
five or six lambs without blemish are killed, roasted, and 
eaten in haste, with the fingers ; the bones are then 
burnt.f 

Nabulus or Nablous (a corruption of Neapalis or 
Flavia Neapolis, so called to commemorate its restoration 

.* Joseplius, Anttq.y XT. 7, 2; comp. Nehem. 13:28; Robinson, Re- 
searches^ II L, p. 117. 

t For a lull description of this unique festival from personal obser- 
vation, see Mills' Nablous and the Modern Samaritans^ London, 1864. It 
is quoted by Dr. Norman Macleod in Eastward^ and in Cook's Palestine 
and Syria, pp. 257-261. Dean Stanley also witnessed the ceremony on 
his visit with the Prince of Wales, and points out the striking resemblance 
to the Mosaic prescription* 




SHECHEM AND MT. GERIZIM : FROM THE NORTHWEST 




MODERN NAZARETH : FROM THE EAST. 



SAMARIA, 



315 



by Flavius Vespasianus) occupies the place of ancient 
Shechem, the capital of Jeroboam. It is the birthplace 
of Justin Martyr, the first Christian philosopher. It Hes 
between the mountains of Gerizim and Ebal, in a small 
but exceedingly fertile valley, enlivened by fresh foun- 
tains and rills, carpeted with green verdure, olive-groves, 
and gardens, and musical with birds. Stanley calls it 
" the most beautiful, perhaps the only very beautiful, spot 
in central Palestine." But the inside of the town, as usual 
in the East, is by no means attractive, though curious 
and interesting. The chief building is the great mosque, 
once a church of the Crusaders, dedicated to St. John. 
The town numbers from 13,000 to 15,000 inhabitants, 
including about 600 Christians, mostly of the Greek 
Church, 140 Samaritans, and 100 Jews, the rest are Mos- 
lems.* There is a Protestant Baptist missionary in the 
place. El Gary, a native of Nabulus, but educated in 
England, and a German catechist, Mr. Falscher, who 
keeps an Arabic school in connection with the Anglican 
bishopric of Jerusalem. The Samaritans occupy a sep- 
arate quarter of the city, and have a small, whitewashed 
synagogue, to which Mr. Falscher kindly conducted me 
through a labyrinth of streets. The high-priest, a very 
handsome man, in the prime of life, brought from behind 
the veil and showed us for baksheesh the famous Samar- 
itan Pentateuch, the somewhat defaced original as well 
as a fine copy. There seem to be several copies extant. 
Professor Peterson procured one. The Codex is written 
in fiamaritan characters on rolls of parchment, and wrap- 

* These statistics were gathered on the spot, but vary much in books. 



3i6 



BIBLE LANDS, 



ped in a scarf of crimson satin. Though not the work of 
a grandson of Aaron, as they claim, it is undoubtedly 
very old, and one of the greatest bibliographical curiosi- 
ties. It has been minutely described by travellers and 
discussed by Biblical scholars, especially in its relation to 
the Hebrew text.* The Pentateuch is the Bible of the 
Samaritans, who are monotheists and believers in the 
future advent of the Messiah, but reject the later books 
of the Old Testament, They are a remarkable example 
of the amazing tenacity of Eastern tradition. They are 
the smallest and oldest sect, consisting of about forty 
families, and perpetuating a schism of more than two 
thousand years. But, after all, they illustrate only on a 
small scale and in a single spot, what the Jews do in all 
lands — -the burning bush which is not consumed. 

The ruins of Samaria or Sebaste (Sebastiyeh) are 
two hours' ride (eight miles) from Nabulus. The path 
leads over the most cultivated valley in Palestine. The 
modern Moslem village Sebastiyeh is on the slope of 
a hill. The ancient city was beautifully located on the 
top of a round hill, surrounded by a picturesque amphi- 
theatre of hills and fertile valleys, but it had no sacred 
traditions to rest on. The bad King Omri built Sama- 
ria for his pleasure as a second capital of the kingdom of 
the Ten Tribes,! a sort of Versailles or Potsdam. His 
worse son Ahab made it the headquarters of idolatry by 
building an altar for Baal (the chief deity of his wife Jez- 
ebel, a daughter of the king of Sidon), and " did more to 



* See a series of articles on the Samaritan Pentateuch by Pick in the 
Bibliotheca Sacra for 1877 and 1878. t i Kings 16 : 24. 



SAMARIA. 



317 



provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of 
Israel that were before him/'* This apostasy called forth 
the rebuke of the prophet Elijah, and his famous sacrifice 
and defeat of the four hundred and fifty priests of Baal 
on Mount Carmel.f Hosea and Micah prophesied that 
" Samaria shall become desolate as a heap of the field." J 
Isaiah pronounced Woe to the crown of pride, to the 
drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading 
flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them 
that are overcome with wine."§ Soon afterwards the 
city was taken and destroyed, after a siege of three years, 
by the Assyrians, b. c. 722, || and again by Hyrcanus. 
But it was rebuilt under the Maccabees. Herod the 
Great fortified and beautified it under the Greek name 
Sebaste, in honor of his master, the emperor Augustus. 
He built a temple of Augustus and a magnificent double 
colonnade around the topmost terrace of the hill. About 
a hundred decapitated and broken or half-buried pillars 
still remain. 

Philip the evangelist preached the gospel with great 
success in Samaria.^ It became afterwards an Episcopal 
see, and in the twelfth century the Crusaders built below 
the hill a large Gothic church of St. John the Baptist, 
who, according to a tradition dating from the fourth cen- 
tury, was beheaded and buried here.** It is now a pic- 
turesque ruin, and used as a mosque. John's prison and 
tomb are shown in a crypt much older than the church. 

* I Kings 16 : 32, 33. f i Kings 18 : 20, seq. f Hos. 13 : 16; Mic. i : 6. 
§ Isa. 28 : I. II 2 Kings 18 : 10, ii. f Acts 8 : 5-8. 

** Josephus [Antiquities, XVIII. 5, 2) and Eusebius locate the prison 
and martyrdom of John in the castle of Machasrus, east of the Dead Sea. 

27* 



BIBLE LANDS. 



About twelve miles north of Samaria, and west of the 
road to Galilee, is Dothan, still bearing the ancient 
name, on a rich but uninhabited pasture-ground, which 
recalls the first chapter in the romantic history of Jo- 
seph, so full of striking providential surprises and over- 
rulings, beginning in slavery and exile, and ending with 
the rulership over Egypt, as a reward for unspotted 
purity of character in the midst of temptation and cor- 
ruption.^ Joseph and Daniel, two shining lights of truth 
and piety in heathen darkness, who can measure the 
influence of their example upon young men ! 

At Jenin (the ancient Levitical city Engannim)t the 
second camping station on the northern journey from 
Jerusalem, we enter the celebrated plain of Esdraelon, 
or Jezreel, also called the Plain of Megiddo, the inherit- 
ance of Issachar, whom Jacob described as "a strong 
ass, crouching down between two burdens." It is an 
irregular triangle, and, next to the Plain of Sharon, the 
most fertile district of Palestine, looking in spring like a 
green velvet carpet, but almost uninhabited, sadly neg- 
lected, and exposed to the ravages of the wild Bedawin, 
who from time to time make raids, pitch their black 
tents, kill the peasants, plunder the crops, and then ride, 
back with their booty on camels and horses to their lairs 
in the Hauran. They are as bad as a 3warm of locusts, 
and the Turkish government is powerless. Esdraelon is 

* Gen. 37 : 17 : "And Joseph went after his brethren and found them 
in Dothan." Dothan or Dothain means the two wells. The prophet 
Elisha resided there for a while, and was providentially delivered from 
the hands of the Syrians. 2 Kings 6 : 8-23. 

t Josh. r9 : 21 ; 21 : 29. 



SAMARIA. 



319 



the classic soil of battles, where Barak and Gideon tri- 
umphed ; where Deborah sung her stirring war-song f 
where (on the neighboring Mount Gilboa) Saul and Jon- 
athan fell, and called forth the lament of David, as re- 
markable for its sentiments of generosity and friendship 
as for its poetic beauty ;t where good King Josiah, 
exposing himself in his chariot, was mortally wounded 
by the Egyptian archers.^ These reminiscences fur- 
nished the author of the Apocalypse the mystic name for 
the final battlefield on the great day of God Almighty."§ 
In the battle of Mount Tabor, Napoleon with 3,00c 
Frenchmen gained a fruitless victory over 30,000 Turks. 

The miserable hamlet Zerin, on a low spur which 
projects westward from Gilboa, about seven miles north 
of Jenin, represents the ancient Jezreel, the capital of 
Ahab and Jezebel, and the scene of a series of bloody 
crimes and tragedies, in fearful punishment of their idola- 
try and wickedness, rebuked by the stern prophet Elijah, jj 

At Shunem (Sulem), a village surrounded by gardens 
with cactus hedges and by rich grain fields, about five 
miles farther north, we remember the story of the Shu- 
namite and her son, whom Elisha raised from the dead.^ 
^ut we look in vain for the good woman and the proph- 
et's chamber, and for the fair Shulamite of the Canti- 
cles, and ride on to Nain and Nazareth. 

* Judg. chaps. 4-7. t I Sam. 31 : 2, seq. ; 2 Sam. 1:17, seq. 

X 2 Chron. 35 ; 20-25. See the graphic description of these battles by 
Stanley in Chap. IX. 

§ Armageddon," the city or mountain of Megiddo. Rev. 16:14-16; 
19 : 19. 11 I Kings 21 and 22. ^ 2 Kings 4 :8-37. 



320 



BIBLE LANDS, 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

NAZARETH. 

Importance of Nazareth— The Education of our 
Lord— Approach to the Town— A Question of 
Skepticism and the Answer of Faith— Ancient 
and Modern Nazareth— The Beautiful View— 
The Women of Nazareth— The Virgin's Foun- 
tain—The Population— The Traditional Sights— 
A Female Orphanage— Mathilda Dickson— The 
Protestant Mission Church — Rev. Messrs. Zeller 
and Bellamy and Mr. Huber— A Christian Hos- 
pital— Dr. Vartan. 

April 15. 

Here we are in this retired mountain village where 
the Saviour of mankind spent the greater part of his 
life on earth ! In Bethlehem we feel the joy of his birth, 
in Jerusalem the awe and anguish of his crucifixion, but 
also the glory of his resurrection ; in Nazareth we look 
at the humble abode of his youth and early manhood. 
Talent and character are matured in quiet seclusion for 
the great battle of public life. 

Nazareth is not even named in the Old Testament, 
except by an indirect allusion of prophecy,* but " Jesus 
of Nazareth" has made it a household word. Here he 
grew up in the obscurity of a carpenter-shop, with no 
other means of education than the Hebrew Scriptures, 
which in prophecy and type foretold his own character 
and mission, and the book of nature which, from the sum- 
mit of the hill, spread before his eyes the fertile plain of 

* Matt. 2 ; 23. 



NAZARETH. 



321 



Jezreel in the south, the mountains of Tabor and Gilboa 
in the east, the lofty Hermon in the north, and Carmel 
with the shores of the Mediterranean sea in the west — 
that future highway of the gospel of peace to all mankind. 
The beautiful surroundings, laden with the memories of 
David and Jonathan, Elijah and Elisha, and many a battle 
of Israel, afforded educational advantages even to Him 
who, like other men, " grew and waxed strong in spirit " 
and " increased in wisdom and stature." Yet they can 
in no way explain the astounding result. He was neither 
school-taught nor self-taught nor inspired for a season 
like the prophets ; he came directly from God, and taught 
the world as one who owed nothing to its books, its 
schools, its history, its society, its favor; he was the 
Light of the world and the Truth itself. Explain it as 
you may, the astounding fact is there, Jesus of Naza- 
reth is the central miracle of history. 

A journey of three days brings us from Jerusalem to 
Nazareth, after spending the first night at the Robbers' 
Fountain, the second at Jenin. Coming from the ruins 
of Nain, where Christ raised the only son of a widow 
from death to life, and in full view of Tabor, the tradi- 
tional Mount of Transfiguration, we ride swiftly over the 
Plain of Esdraelon — the historic battlefield of Israel — and 
slowly ascend the rocks and hills to En-Nasirah. We 
cannot see it till we are quite near. It is not perched on 
the hill-top, like Bethlehem and the cities of Judah and 
Benjamin, but in a basin on a steep slope of the hill to 
which it clings like an amphitheatre. Its modest retire- 
ment may account for its proverbial obscurity. We en- 



322 



BIBLE LANDS. 



camp a little distance east of the town, close by "the Vir- 
gin's Fountain/' from which Christ and his mother must 
have drawn their daily supply of water, as the people do 
now; for there is no other fountain within convenient 
reach. It is the only certain relic of the days of Jesus 
in this home of his youth. ^ 

As we walk through the narrow, crooked, and dirty 
streets of the town, passing now a dead dog in a putres- 
cent state, now an immense dung-heap which has been ^ 
allowed to accumulate for years to spread disease, and as 
we look into the houses or holes where men, camels, and 
donkeys live together on terms of equality, we are tempt- 
ed to ask. Is it possible that the eternal Son of God, 
through whom the worlds were made, should have spent 
thirty years, all his boyhood, youth, and early manhood 
in such a place and amid such surroundings, among 
brethren who did not believe in him,f and neighbors 
who attempted to cast him down headlong from the brow 
of the hill for preaching the acceptable year of the 
Lord ? J Reason doubts, but faith adores the amazing 
condescension of God. " Can any good thing come out 
of Nazareth T was Nathanael's question when he first 
heard from Philip of the son of Joseph. But when he 

* The fountain is also called "Ain Mariam," " Fons Marias," "Ga- 
briel's Spring," "the Fountain of the Annunciation." It is not mentioned 
in the New Testament, but in the apocryphal Gospel of St. James, and the 
tradition is supported by inherent probability. " Es kajtn nicht zweifel- 
haft sein,'''' says Tobler {Nazareth^ p. 214), dass Maria tmd Jesus ztc die^ 
sent Brunnen gingen und aus diesem Brunnen tranken?"^ Tobler's Naza- 
reth (Berlin, 1868, 344 pages), with a topographical map by Kev. J. Zeller, 
gives the fullest and most accurate description of the town. 

t John 7:5. % Luke 4 : 29. 



NAZARETH, 



323 



came and saw with his own eyes, he exclaimed, Rabbi, 
thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel." 
The title ''Nazarene" was applied to Christ and his fol- 
lowers in derision and contempt, but it is significant of 
that humihation and outward lowliness which is at all 
times the way to exaltation and glory. Via cmcis via 
hicis. 

The town as well as the whole country was in a more 
•prosperous condition at the time of Christ, although the 
people were no better, perhaps v/orse, than now. The 
despotic and stupid Turkish government discourages 
every form of industry, and taxes every fruit-tree whether 
it bears ar not. Many farmers cut down their trees to 
escape taxation, except the indispensable olive and fig. 
A few years ago the neighboring Mount Tabor was cov- 
ered with oaks, but now it is almost bare on the southern 
slope. 

But some fine buildings have recently been put up by 
foreigners, and compared with other towns of this un- 
happy and down-trodden land of Palestine, Nazareth im- 
proves upon acquaintance. It is better built, has more 
decent houses, and shows more industry and thrift than 
any of the miserable villages I have passed through since 
I left Jerusalem, with the exception of Nabulus. It is 
the chief commercial town of Galilee and the mart of 
exchange between the merchants of Acre and Haifa, and 
the Bedawin. Viewed from the top of the hill, to which 
in all probability it formerly extended, it presents a pleas- 
ing appearance, while the view from that hill is one of 
the most extensive and charming I have seen in the East, 



324 



BIBLE LANDS, 



Lieutenant Lynch preferred Nazareth even to Bethlehein, 
and calls it " the prettiest place in Palestine/' Renan, in 
his " Life of Jesus," says that no place in the world was 
so well adapted to dreams of absolute happiness." 

The Christian women of Nazareth are more beautiful 
in person, more cleanly in attire, and more courteous in 
manner than any in Palestine, with the exception of their , 
sisters in Bethlehem, where nearly the whole population 
is Christian. They certainly contrast favorably with the 
ignorance and degradation of women in purely Moham- 
medan villages. Catholics trace the exceptional supe- 
riority of the women of these two places to the influence 
of the Virgin Mary, who is to them the perfection of 
physical as well as moral beauty and grace. But we pre- 
fer to go to the primary source of the Christian religion 
which everywhere develops true womanhood. The Naz- 
arene females wear around their forehead and face a roll 
of silver coins (called ''semedi"), to which our Saviour 
alludes in the parable of the lost piece of silver.* They 
walk the streets unveiled and mostly barefooted, and 
gather every morning and evening around the marble 
trough of the '^Virgin's Fountain," gossiping and quar- 
relling, and filling their large water-jars, which they 
carry gracefully on their heads. I was touched by a 
beautiful little girl that took me by the hand and im- 
ploringly looked up to me as if she had lost her father 
or mother. 

The fountain is fed by waters from the hills, and 

* Luke 15:8. The ten pieces of silver here spoken of are drachma, 
worth 17 cents each, though relatively worth ten times as much then. 



NAZARETH. 



3^5 



never fails. It is in a better condition than the foun- 
tains of Jerusalem and Jacob's Well ; yet the ground 
before the fountain is very muddy, and even the muddy 
water is used. It marks the spot where the angel, ac- 
cording to the Greek tradition, first appeared to the Vir- 
gin mother with his astounding message. The Greek 
Church of the Annunciation stands near the fountain, 
but is closed, and looks rude and gloomy as compared 
with its Franciscan rival in the town. 

The population of Nazareth is variously estimated 
from 4,000 to 10,000. A well-informed resident fixes 
the number at 8,000. The Orthodox Greeks are the 
most numerous ; next come the Moslems, then the Lat- 
ins, United Greeks, Maronites, and Protestants. The 
Latins have a fine convent and hospice, the Casa Nuova 
Foresteria, w^here one may lodge at ten francs a day. 
The Protestants number not more than one hundred, 
but represent the hope of the future. I found among 
them some intelligent and enterprising members of the 
Hoffman colony of Haifa at the foot of Mount Carmel. 

The traditional sights of Nazareth, besides the Vir- 
gin s Fountain already described, are the two Churches of 
the Annunciation (one Latin and one Greek),* the Kitch- 
en of the Virgin Mary (her house was transferred by an- 
gels to Loretto centuries ago !), the suspended column 
(above the spot where Mary received the angel's mes- 

* On the marble altar of the crypt below the Latin Church of the 
Annunciation is the inscription : ** Hie Verbimi caro factum est^^^ the pen- 
dent to the inscription beneath the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem : 
*' Hie de Virgil le Maria Jestcs C/iristus natiis est.'''' 

Bible Lands. 23 



325 



BIBLE LANDS. 



sage), the Workshop of Joseph and Jesus, the stone Table 
at which Christ often dined v/ith his disciples before and 
after the resurrection, the Synagogue in which he taught, 
and the Rock or Mount of Precipitation from which the 
Nazarenes attempted to cast him down. These traditions 
are utterly worthless, the creatures of superstition and pi- 
ous fraud. The rival claims of the Latins and the Greeks 
to the possession of the spot of the Annunciation neutral- 
ize each other, not to speak of the Casa Santa at Loretto, 
which in no way fits into the locality of her alleged home 
in Nazareth. In no place are local traditions of holy 
places so palpably wrong and irreconcilable. At Naz- 
areth," says Stanley, there are three counter-theories — 
each irreconcilable with the other — in relation to the 
special scene which has been selected for peculiar rever- 
ence." He then enters into an examination of that most 
incredible of legends, the miraculous removal of Mary's 
house by angels through the air, first to Greece and then 
to Italy, and shows that its architecture contradicts that 
of the local tradition. He calls that legend (which is first 
mentioned in a bull of Leo X., 15 18) the petrifaction of 
the last sigh of the Crusaders.* 

The traditional Mount of Precipitation is two miles 
off from the town, and cannot be the brow of the hill 
" on which the city was built." The steep rock behind 
the Maronite church would have answered the purpose 

* See his plans of the House of Loretto and the Grotto of Nazareth 
in the new edition of Sinai and Falesti7ze, London, 1868, p. 436. The plans 
were drawn from actual measurement by a Roman-catholic priest of the 
Oratory, the late W. II. Hutchison. 



NAZARETH. 



327 



much better, and agrees with the description of Luke 
(chap. 4 : 29). I examined the spot with Mr. Huber, the 
resident German missionary, and came to the conclusion 
that this is in all probability the real rock of precipi- 
tation. 

But let me now turn to the signs of a better future, 
which most travellers pass by. As I approached Naza- 
reth, my attention was arrested by an imposing white 
building situated below the brow of the hill, and com- 
manding the whole town. I did not fail to visit it, and 
learned that it was an orphanage, established in 1874 by 
the English Ladies' Society for Promoting Female Ed- 
ucation in the East.'' It is the handsomest building of 
the kind in all Palestine, and is kept as neat and clean 
as any schoolhouse in Europe or America. The princi- 
pal. Miss Mathilda Dickson, with whom I had a long and 
interesting conversation, is a highly-accomplished and 
devoted lady, and reminded me, by her zeal for mission 
work and the elevation of the female sex, of the late Mrs. 
Doremus, whose praise is in all the churches, and whose 
memory will never fade. The orphanage has thirty-four 
boarders (mostly of Greek, some of Protestant, a few of 
Mohammedan parentage), who are here washed and 
dressed, and taught the elements of domestic and social 
education, Bible history, and Christian hymns. It is 
hoped that their influence will tell upon their future hus- 
bands and children, and indirectly prepare the v^ay for 
evangelical Christianity. It must be confessed, however, 
that the work is very difficult; for girls in the East are 
married very young, that is, they are bought and sold 



328 



BIBLE LANDS. 



into a state of slavery. The institution owns the hill, 
from which the finest view is enjoyed. It is undenomi- 
national, but works in connection with the Episcopal 
Church, the only Protestant church in Nazareth. One of 
its good effects is that it has stimulated the zeal of the 
Greek bishop, who started a rival school for girls in 1876. 

The Protestant church is a beautiful building in the 
heart of the town. It was founded by the English Church 
Missionary Society, and stands in connection with the 
Anglo-Prussian bishopric of Jerusalem. The gospel is 
preached here in Arabic to about sixty hearers, and a large 
number of children are taught in the Sabbath-school The 
first minister was Rev. J. Zeller, whose wife — a daughter 
of Bishop Gobat of Jerusalem — wrote a charming book 
on the flowers of Palestine. He was followed by the 
Rev. Franklin Bellamy (formerly of the Royal English 
Navy), an accomplished and liberal clergyman. He in- 
vited me to preach ; and when I told him that I was not 
an Episcopalian, he said that it made no difference, as 
the canons did not apply to missionary stations. He is 
assisted by a catechist, Mr. Jacob Huber, who was edu- 
cated in the Mission House at Basle, and has labored 
here many years most faithfully. I found him an intel- 
ligent, experienced, and obliging gentleman. He spoke 
in high terms of the Presbyterian Mission in Beirut, to 
which the Episcopal mission schools are indebted for 
Christian literature in the Arabic language. 

Finally, I must mention a Christian hospital which 
was founded by the Edinburgh Medical Missionary So- 
ciety (undenominational, but chiefly Presbyterian). It 



NAZARETH. 



329 



is very ably and successfully managed by Dr. Vatian, an 
Armenian educated in Scotland. His medical skill is a 
great aid to the Protestant Mission. 

O Thou great Friend to all the sons of men, 
Who once appeared in humblest guise below, 

Sin to rebuke, to break the captive's chain. 
And call thy brethren forth from want and woe, 

" We look to Thee ! Thy truth is still the Light 
Which guides the nations groping on their way. 
Stumbling and falling in disastrous night, 
Yet hoping ever for the perfect day. 

"Yes ; Thou art still the Life, Thou art the Way 

The holiest know; Light, Life, the Way of heaven ! 
And they who dearest hope and deepest pray 

Toil by the Light, Life, Way, which Thou has given." 



28* 



330 



BIBLE LANDS. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

TABOR AND HERMON. 

Mount Tabor— Its Central Situation and Beautiful 
Shape -—The View from the Summit — Mount 
Hermon— Its Majesty and Grandeur — The 
Transfiguration — Dispute about the Locality — 
Arguments for Hermon — Import of the Event — 
Raphael's Crowning Work. 

Mount Tabor is the Rigi, Mount Hermon the Mont 
Blanc, of Palestine. They are the two representative 
mountains of that country, the one for its gracefulness, 
the other for its loftiness. They are not mentioned in 
the New Testament, but repeatedly in the Old. They 
are associated together by the Psalmist when he says, 
^* Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name."* Some 
of the greatest events in the history of Revelation, from 
the legislation of Moses to the Ascension of Christ, took 
place on mountains. Tabor or Hermon, probably the 
latter, is the Mount of Transfiguration. 

Mount TaborI lies right in the centre of the Holy 
Land, about six or eight miles east of Nazareth, from 
which it can be reache.d in two hours. It is wholly of 
limestone. It rises isolated and alone in its glory from 

* Psa. 89 : 12 : comp. Jer. 46 : 18 : " As Tabor is among the mountains, 
and as Carmel by the sea." Hos. 5:1: "A net spread upon Tabor." 

t ^IrafSvpiov in the Septuagint. The Arabs call it by the same name as 
Mount Olivet, Jebel et-Tur." 



TABOR AND HERMON, 



331 



the plain of Esdraelon to a height of 1,400 feet from the 
base, or 1,900 from the level of the sea. Owing to its 
isolation, it appears twice as large as it really is. It can 
easily be ascended from every side in an hour, on foot or 
on horseback. It would have been, according to a rab- 
binical saying, the best site by nature for the national 
sanctuary, if a special revelation had not determined the 
location of the temple on Mount Moriah. 

Tabor has a rare symmetrical beauty of shape, and 
commands one of the finest views in all Palestine. It is 
rounded off like a hemisphere, and clothed with grass 
and a forest of oaks, except on the southern slope, where 
modern vandalism has destroyed the growth of nature. 
The top is a flattened platform, from which the eye can 
wander over some of the most classical spots on earth. 
It is not indeed a panorama of romantic lakes, winding 
rivers, flourishing towns, snow-capped Alps such as you 
may enjoy from Rigi-Kulm — yet a panorama lovely and 
beautiful, and pregnant with associations more important 
than Ktissnacht, Grtitli, Morgarten, and Goldau. Tow- 
ards the west you see the hills of Nazareth, and farther 
on Mount Carmel and the Mediterranean ; towards the 
north the Lake of Tiberias, the mountains of Naphtali, 
and the snow-peaks of Hermon ; in the south the ruins 
of Nain and Endor, the Little Hermon, and Mount Gil- 
boa, where Jonathan fell ; in the east and beyond the 
Jordan, the mountains of Bashan and Gilead. 

Mount Hermon is less graceful, but more im.posing 
and sublime. It is called "Jebel esh-Sheikh" by the 
Arabs, e.^ the chief mountain. It rises on the northern 



BIBLE LANDS. 



extremity of Galilee to a height of 10,000 feet above the 
Mediterranean, and presents three lofty peaks. It is 
covered with eternal snow, which gives it a glistening 
appearance. It can be seen from every direction far 
and wide, from Gerizim and Tabor in the south, from 
Damascus in the east, from the northern heights of the 
Antilebanon and Lebanon, and from the plains of Coele- 
syria. Moses saw it from the top of Pisgah in Moab, 
when " the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead unto 
Dan.'' At its southern base lies Banias or Caesarea 
Philippi, one of the most romantic spots in Palestine. 
Here the river Jordan gushes out from the rocks. Here, 
on the boundary line between the Jews and the Gentiles, 
our Saviour spent several days before he entered on his 
last journey to Jerusalem. Here he elicited from Peter 
that famous confession, from which, as from a spiritual 
rock, have sprung the Christian confessions and creeds 
of subsequent ages. Here he prophesied the founding 
of his indestructible Church, his passion and resurrec- 
tion. 

Tabor and Hermon are the two claimants for the 
honor of being the Mount of Transfiguration, or " the 
holy mount," as Peter calls it* It was certainly a 
high mountain," according to the Evangelists, and the 
choice lies between these two. Both are in themselves 
equally well fitted for the event. Tabor rather than Her- 
mon, on account of its central location in Palestine, only 
a few miles from Nazareth and the Lake of Gennesaret, 

* Matt. 17:1-13; Mark 9:2-13; Luke 9:28-36; comp. 2 Peter 
I : 16-18. 



TABOR AND HERMON. 



333 



where our Saviour spent the greater part of his Hfe on 
earth. 

Tabor has in its favor the monastic tradition, which 
goes back to St. Jerome in the fourth century, and which 
gave rise to a number of buildings on the summit. There 
is a Latin convent ; a Httle farther down, a Greek con- 
vent, inhabited by a few lonely monks, who offer shelter 
and refreshment to pilgrims and travellers. Each claims 
to be built on or very near the spot where the Transfig- 
uration took place. The Latin monk, an Italian Francis- 
can, gave us lemonade and showed us the ruins of three 
churches t)f the Crusaders. They were to correspond to 
the three tents which Peter in his dreamy state, "not 
knowing what he said," desired to build, one for his 
Lord, one for Moses, and one for Elijah, being content 
for himself and his two fellow-disciples to watch out- 
side. In the Greek Church the festival of the Transfig- 
uration is called after the mountain the Taborion."* 

But two arguments are against Tabor and in favor of 
Hermon. 

(i.) The fact that the summit of Tabor was occupied 
by a city of the tribe of Zebulon,f and was employed 
without intermission between the times of Antiochus the 
Great, 218 b. c, to the destruction of Jerusalem, A. d. 70, 
as a fortification, and hence unfit for quiet seclusion and 
meditation.^ 

* TO -dafSupLOV. 

t I Chron. 6 : 77 : " Tabor with her subuibs." 

I See Polybius V. 70, 6 ; Josephiis, Ant XIV. 6, 3; Bell. Jiid. I. 8, 7 ; 
11. 20, 6; IV. I, 8. 



334 



BIBLE LANDS. 



(2.) More conclusive than this local objection is the 
succession of events and the short interval between them. 
The transfiguration took place six days " after Peter s 
confession in Csesarea Philippi, at the foot of Mount Her- 
mon,* and was followed by a journey to Capernaum, and 
thence to Jerusalem.! This is all plain if we locate the 
transfiguration on Hermon ; but it would have been a 
waste of time if Jesus should have travelled from Caesa- 
rea Philippi to Mount Tabor, passing Capernaum on the 
way, and gone back from Mount Tabor to Capernaum, 
then to proceed again southward to Jerusalem. More- 
over, it is exceedingly improbable that Christ should so 
suddenly have left his retreat in the highlands of Gaula- 
nitis, and transferred the scene of one of his most secret 
revelations to Galilee, where he was everywhere perse- 
cuted/'J 

On Mount Hermon there are several retired plat- 
forms where Christ and his disciples might have been 
"apart by themselves," and met their heavenly visitors 
without fear of disturbance from any quarter. It is very 
significant that the transfiguration, as well as the prece- 
ding confession of Peter, should have occurred on this 
border region between the Jews and the Gentiles, as if in 
anticipation of the triumph of the gospel in the heathen 
world. 

The transfiguration of Christ took place shortly be- 

* [lE'&'Tjaepa^ e^, Matt. 17:1; Mark 9:2; or more indefinitely toad yfiepat 
6/C7W, Luke 9 : 28. 

t Matt. 17:24; Mark 9: 33. 

X Lange on Matt. 17 : i (p. 306, Am. ed.). Ritter, Robinson, Stanley, 
and Tristram likewise decide against Tabor. 



TABOR AND HERMON. 335 



fore his passion and in anticipation of his final glorifica- 
tion, before the representatives of the Old Dispensation, 
Moses the lawgiver, and Elijah the mighty prophet, who 
had mysteriously disappeared from earth, and now ap- 
peared again from the spirit-world to do homage to the 
Fulfiller of the law and the promise, and to consign to 
him their expiring authority ; and before the representa- 
tive apostles of the New Dispensation, Peter, James, and 
John, who were here fortified against the severe trial of 
their faith at the approaching crucifixion. It was a visi- 
ble manifestation and effulgence of the hidden glory of 
Christ's person, accompanied by an audible voice from 
heaven declaring him, as on the day of baptism, the Son 
of God, on whom the Father had fixed his delight. It 
was a sure pledge of his own exaltation and of the future 
glory of his people, when our mortal bodies shall put on 
immortality and see him as he is. It furnishes a stri- 
king proof of the immortality of the soul, the intercom- 
munion between heaven and earth, and the harmony of 
the two Dispensations, which meet in the divine-human 
person and atoning work of Christ. After the scene the 
disciples saw no one but Jesus alone. Moses and Elijah 
disappeared again, the types and shadows departed, the 
substance remained : Christ all in all. 

Every one knows the picture of the Transfiguration 
in the Vatican, which represents the Saviour soaring 
above the earth and floating in glory, Moses and Elijah 
bowing in adoration before him, the disciples overpow- 
ered by the dazzling light, and below, in startling con- 
trast to this scene of celestial peace, the misery of the 



336 



BIBLE LANDS. 



lunatic whose healing follows in the gospel narrative. It 
is one of the sublimest conceptions of human genius, and 
yet but an imperfect reflection of the reality. It was the 
last work of Raphael, and accompanied his coffin to the 
grave in the Pantheon. He died of the transfiguration, 
in the prime of manhood ; but his picture, multiplied in 
ten thousand copies all over the earth, will continue to 
preach to admiring beholders the best sermon on this 
supernatural event. 



THE LAKE OF GALILEE, 



337 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE LAKE OF GALILEE, 

Biblical Associations — The Scene of our Lord's 
Teaching and Miracles — Ride from Nazareth to 
the Lake of Galilee — The Horns of Hattin, the 
Mount of Beatitudes — The disastrous Battle of 
the Crusaders and the Loss of Palestine — The 
City of Tiberias— Magdala — The Lake of Galilee 
in the First and in the Nineteenth Century — 
Description of J osephus— Present Condition. 

Next to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth, no part 
of Palestine has greater interest to the reader of the 
Bible than the Sea of Galilee, or, as it is now called, 
"Bahr Ttibariyeh/'^ In that region of country our Sav- 
iour spent a great part of his public life. There he called 
Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John, to follow him 
and to become fishers of men. There he proclaimed from 
the Mount of Beatitudes the Magna Charta of his heav- 
enly kingdom — the counterpart of the Mosaic legislation 
from the mount of terror that burned with fire." There 
he spoke, from the ship on the seashore, most of those 
incomparable parables of the kingdom, its beginning, its 
outer and inner growth, its value, its conflict with the 
world, and its final triumph. There he wrought his mir- 
acles of power and mercy. There he made the winds 

* It is also called the Sea of ChinneretJi or CJiinneroth (the Hebrew 
name for Gennesaret)^ the Lake of Gennesaret or Gennesar^ the Lake (or 
Sea) of Tiberias, 

Bible Lands. 29 



338 



BIBLE LANDS, 



and the sea obey him. There he went about teaching 
in the synagogues, preaching the good tidings, heahng 
all manner of disease and sickness, and doing good to 
the bodies and souls of men. Capernaum was his resi- 
dence after the Nazarenes had blindly rejected him. And 
after his resurrection he manifested himself to the disci- 
ples on the shores of the lake. 

We reached Tiberias in an easy and delightful day's 
ride from Nazareth, crossing Mount Tabor, which eccle- 
siastical tradition associates with the Transfiguration, and 
passing the Horns of Hattin (Kurun Hattin), which the 
Latin tradition points out as the Mount of Beatitudes. 
It is easy of access from all sides, and has a double plat- 
form — one higher, one lower — well suited for the gather- 
ing of a sm.aller circle of disciples and of a large multi- 
tude, to whom the Sermon on the Mount was delivered.* 
But this tradition must be left in doubt, since the Evan- 
gelists do not name the mountain, and since " there are," 
as Dr. Robinson says, " in the vicinity of the lake per- 
haps a dozen other mountains which would answer just 
as well to the circumstances of the history." In this 
region the last and fatal battle of the Crusaders, called 
the battle of Hattin, was fought on the fourth or fifth of 
July, 1 1 87, when the flower of the Christian chivalry was 
nearly annihilated by Sultan Saladin. It was immedi- 
ately followed by the subjugation of Jerusalem and all 
Palestine to the yoke of the Moslems, under which they 
are still groaning. 

* Comp. Matt. 5:1; Mark 4 : 7, 8 : Luke 6:17; and Lange's commen- 
taries in loc. 



THE LAKE OF GALILEE, 



339 



We arrived in camp before sunset, half a mile south 
of the city of Tiberias, and took at once a most refreshing 
bath in the lake, as we did twice on the day following. 

Tiberias (Tubariyeh), built by Herod Antipas, a. d. 
20, was once a famous seat of rabbinical learning, and is 
still one of the two holy cities of the Jews in Galilee — 
Safed being the other — as Jerusalem and Hebron are 
their holy cities in Judaea. It is now a miserable, dirty 
place, inhabited by Jews and Moslems, and subject to 
earthquakes, in one of which (1837) half of the popula- 
tion perished, and the walls were thrown down. It seemed 
to me to be the very headquarters of Beelzebub; for as 
soon as we lighted our candles in the tent the table was 
literally covered with flies, so that we had to extinguish 
the lights and sit in darkness. And yet Tiberias is the 
most important town, in fact the only town deserving of 
the name, on this whole lake. This is a fair specimen of 
the startling contrast between the Galilee of the first and 
the Galilee of the nineteenth century. The only other 
place is Mejdel, the ancient Magdala, in the plain of 
Gennesaret, containing about a dozen of wretched Mos- 
lem hovels, but recalling the memory of Mary Magdalene, 

The sweet fragrance of whose ointment 

All the earth is filling now, 
And whose tears are turned to jewels 

For a crown upon her brow." 

During the public life of our Lord the shores of the 
lake were the most densely populated and the most flour- 
ishing part of Palestine ; now it is the most deserted. 
Then nine cities teeming with life adorned the shores ; 



340 



BIBLE LANDS, 



now you see nothing but Tiberias, Magdala, and a few- 
shapeless ruins. Then the lake was covered with sails 
of ships passing from shore to shore ; now there are only 
about three rough fishing-boats to be seen. 

Josephus relates a victorious naval battle which Ves- 
pasian fought on the lake against the Jews before the 
destruction of Jerusalem, and gives a glowing account of 
that country in his day. " The waters of the lake,'' he 
says in substance, "are sweet, and extremely pleasant to 
drink ; fish found here differ from others in flavor and 
species ; the surrounding country is admirable for its 
quality and beauty. Such is the fertility of the soil that 
it rejects no plant, and so genial is the climate that it 
suits every variety ; the walnut, which delights in a win- 
try climate, grows here luxuriantly, together with the 
palm-tree which is nourished by heat, and near to those 
are figs and olives to which a milder atmosphere has 
been assigned. One might style this an ambitious effort 
of nature, doing violence to herself in bringing together 
plants of discordant habits, and an amiable rivalry of the 
seasons, each as it were asserting its right to the soil ; 
for it not only possesses the extraordinary virtue of nour- 
ishing fruits of opposite climes, but also maintains a con- 
tinual supply of them. Thus it produces those most 
royal of all, the grape and the fig, during ten months, 
without intermission, while the other varieties ripen the 
year round ; for besides being favored by the genial tem- 
perature of the air, it is irrigated by a highly fertilizing 
spring, called Capharnaum by the people of the country.''^ 

* Bell. Jud. III. 10, 8. 



THE LAKE OF GALILEE, 



341 



This description reads like irony when compared 
with the present condition. No roads, no houses, no 
gardens, no cultivated farms meet the eye along the 
shore, but wild grass, briers, and thistles in abundance. 

And yet nature in its beauty is still there, notwith- 
standing the vandalism of men. There is the lake with 
its clear blue waters ; there the hills in the light of the 
sun ; there the plain of Gennesaret with its tropical fer- 
tility. The bright red magnolias grow luxuriantly among 
thistles and thorns, and occasionally even the fig, the 
olive, the pomegranate, the date-palm, the sugar-cane may 
still be found there. The lake district presents a beautiful 
picture, not indeed so grand and sublime as the lakes of 
Switzerland, nor so lovely and charming as the lakes of 
Northern Italy, but with a richer history, a warmer cli- 
mate, and a better soil. It might be made an earthly par- 
adise under a good government and with an industrious 
people. If it were not for the utter absence of conven- 
ience and comfort, such as every traveller from the West 
now looks for, one might delightfully spend weeks on 
those shores consecrated by the life and example of the 
wisest of the wise and the purest of the pure that ever 
trod this earth. 

The lake forms a triangular oval or pear shape, with 
the broad end towards the north. It almost resembles 
a harp. It is over 12 (Badeker says 16 J) miles long, 6 
miles broad, 160 feet deep. It lies 60 miles northeast of 
Jerusalem, and 27 miles east of the Mediterranean. It 
is on an average 660 (the Dead Sea is 1,292) feet be- 
low the Mediterranean. It abounds in fish. Its water 

29* 



342 



BIBLE LANDS. 



is slightly saline, but pure and wholesome. The Jordan 
enters in from the north. All the towns which supplied 
the names of the lake were situated on the western shore. 
On the northwestern shore is the plain of Gennesa- 
ret (El-Ghuweir), about three miles long and one mile 
broad. The surrounding hills are of limestone capped 
with basalt, and are small and bare. There are hot 
springs near Tiberias, but neglected. Earthquakes and 
violent storms are not infrequent. Dr. Thomson, Cap- 
tain Wilson, and others witnessed sudden thunderstorms 
not unlike that which frightened the disciples, till the 
Lord rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, " Peace, 
be still 



CAPERNAUM, ETC 



343 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

CAPERNAUM, BETHSAIDA, AND CHORAZIN 

The Prophecy of Christ on the Cities of GaHlee and 
its Literal Fulfilment — Capernaum — Bethsaida — 
Chorazin — A Boat Row from Tiberias — The Plain 
of Gennesaret — Magdala — Gergesa and the Herd 
of Swine— Khan Minyeh — Et-Tabighah— Tell 
Hum — Kerazeh — The Capernaum Controversy. 

" Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his 
mighty works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto 
thee, Chorazin ! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! For if the mighty 
works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, 
they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I 
say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the 
day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou 
be exalted unto heaven ? Nay, thou shalt be brought down unto 
hades : for if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which 
were done in thee, it would have remained until this day. But I 
say unto you. It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in 
the day of judgment, than for thee."^ 

This solemn prophecy of the Son of Man has been 
fearfully fulfilled to the letter. Capernaum, Bethsaida, 
and Chorazin, once flourishing towns on the western 
shore of the Lake of Galilee, have long since disappeared 
from the face of the earth, ''leaving no wreck behind.'' 
Once raised to the heaven of gospel privileges, they have 

* Matt. 1 1 ; 20-24. The correct reading in ver. 23 is a question an- 
ticipating a negative answer. Hades (mistranslated " hell " in our Eng- 
lish Version) is not the place of eternal punishment, but the realm of the 
dead, and is used here as a figure of death and desolation, which that re- 
gion presents to-day. 



344 



BIBLE LANDS. 



sunk down to the hades of oblivion. The ruins of the 
heathen cities of Tyre and Sidon on the shores of the 
Mediterranean are well known, but the site of those 
ancient towns of Galilee is still a matter of doubt and 
controversy. Yet the glorious truths and solemn warn- 
ings to which they listened with deaf ears, and the mira- 
cles of mercy which they witnessed and traced to Satanic 
agency, have shaken thrones and converted nations, and 
will be preached from ten thousand pulpits for weal or 
woe to the end of time. 

Capernaum (the town of Nahum), the most important 
and the most guilty of those cities (hence mentioned last 
in the rising climax of woe), is not mentioned in the Old 
Testament, but frequently in the Gospels.* It was the 
home of our Lord after he left Nazareth, and is therefore 
called his own city/'f It was the residence of Peter and 
his mother-in-law,J and probably also of Matthew, who 
was called from the customhouse to the apostolate, and 
consecrated his experience in bookkeeping to the orderly 
topical arrangement of the works and words of his divine 
Master.§ It lay on the northwestern shore of the Sea 
of Galilee, hence called " the maritime,'' and in the bor- 
ders of Zebulun and Naphtali.|| The town was large 
enough to be called a city. It had a flourishing com- 
merce, a customhouse,^ and a large synagogue built by 
that God-fearing and benevolent Roman centurion whose 

* Matt. 4: 13; 8 : 5; 11 .-23 ; 17 : 24 ; Mark I ; 21 ; 2 ; i ; 9: 33 ; Luke 
4 : 23, 31 ; 7:1; 10:15: John 2 : 12 ; 4 : 46 ; 6 : 17, 24, 59. 

t Matt. 4: 13; 9 : £ (f^V Tip UXav 'Kokiv). \ Luke 4 : 38-41. 

§ Matt. 9:9. II Matt. 4 : 13. 1" Matt. 9:9-11. 



CAPERNAUM, ETC. 



345 



servant Christ healed and whose rare faith he commend- 
ed.* Its site is found either at Khan Minyeh at the 
northern end of the plain of Gennesaret, or more proba- 
bly at Tell Hum. 

Bethsaida (The House of Fish, Fishtown) was the 
native place of Peter, Andrew, Philip, James, and John, 
those illiterate fishermen who became fishers of men and 
the spiritual guides of nations.f It is usually distin- 
guished as Bethsaida of Galilee from Bethsaida Julias, and 
then variously located at Khan Minyeh, or at Tabighah, 
or at Tell Hum. But according to a recent and more 
probable theory, the two Bethsaidas are only the two 
parts of one and the same town on both banks of the 
Jordan near its entrance into the lake ; for it is extremely 
improbable that two towns in so close neighborhood 
should have borne the same name. 

Chorazin is only mentioned twice,J and must be 
identical with the ruins of Kerazeh. 

Let us now pass up the western shore of the lake 
and see what is left of these places so full of precious 
reminiscences from the days of our childhood. 

We leave Tiberias early in the morning and embark 
in a coarse fishing-boat. After a delightful row of an 
hour, we mount our horses and ride over the Land of 
Gennesar, or Gennesaret,§ now called " El-Ghuweir 

* Luke 7 : i-io. 

t Matt. 9:21; Mark 6:4, 5 ; 8 : 22 ; Luke 9 : 10 ; 10 : 13 ; John i : 44 ; 
12 : 21. X Matt. II ; 21 ; Luke 10 : 13. 

§ Matt. 14 : 34 ; Mark 6 : 53. Gennesar is probably derived from 
gani and sar, and means the paradise of the prince. 



346 



BIBLE LANDS. 



that is, the Little Ghor, or Plain. It is a triangular plain 
extending three miles along the shore and more than a 
mile back towards the hills. The southern half is well 
watered by several springs ; the northern portion was 
formerly irrigated from 'Ain Tabighah through an aque- 
duct now in ruins. It was once, as the name suggests, 
a rich garden which supplied Jerusalem with choice fruit. 
Though greatly neglected, it still produces excellent 
wheat, melons, cucumbers, olives, and figs. To this plain 
emphatically applies the glowing description of Josephus 
which we have quoted in the preceding chapter. 

The only village left in the plain, at its southern end, 
is a cluster of wretched hovels called Mejdel, the an- 
cient Magdala (Migdal El, the Tower of God), and birth- 
place of Mary Magdalene. On the top of the huts are 
little sleeping-places, to which the inhabitants retire in 
summer to escape the scorpions, lizards, and vermin, 
which abound below. 

Nearly opposite Mejdel, on the eastern shore of the 
lake, are the ruins of Chersa, or Khersa, on the slope 
of a hill in Wady Semakh, within forty feet of the water s 
edge. The walls can still be traced all around. This place 
has been recently identified* with the Biblical Gergesa, 
where Christ cast out the fierce demons and permitted 
them to enter a herd of swine ; whereupon these other- 
wise so stubborn creatures, urged by a preternatural im- 
pulse and seized by a sudden panic, rushed down pell- 
mell the steep precipice and perished in the lake. The 
narrative of the Evangelists corresponds precisely with 

* By Dr. Thomson, The Land and the Book, II. 34-38. 



CAPERNAUM, ETC, 



ZA7 



the nature of the locality as described by Thomson and 
Macgregor. Wild-hogs still abound there, ploughing the 
ground in search of esculent roots.* 

We stretch our tent for the night at the northern end 
of the plain, below a cliff, near the shore and the Foun- 
tain of the Fig-tree ('Ain et Tin). The place is called 
Khan Minyeh, from the ruins of a large Arab khan, or 
caravansary, built in the time of Saladin for the conven- 
ience of travellers to Damascus. The name Minyeh is 
said (by Sepp) to be derived from Minim, or Minaeans, a 
rabbinical designation of heretics. Consequently Khan 
Minyeh would mean ^'the Inn of Heretics," and Kefr 
Minyeh the Village of Heretics," i, e., probably Jewish 
Christians who may have resided there. We carefully 
hunt for ruins which might justify its claim to be the 
site of ancient Capernaum, but can find only stones and 
broken pottery. Dr. Robinson accounts for the absence 
of ruins by the vicinity of Tiberias, to which they may have 
been transported by water. But Tiberias was already 
built when Capernaum was in its prosperity ; and ruins 
of a large town, such as Capernaum must have been, in- 
cluding a synagogue and customhouse, are not so easily 
transported. The excavations of the English Explora- 

* Matt. 8 : 28-34 ; Mark 5 : 1-17 ; Luke 8 : 26-37. The Greek man- 
uscripts vary between Gadarenes^ Gerasenes, and Gergeseiies. The common 
view locates the scene at Gadara (now called ''Omkeis," or "Um Keis "), 
which was the capital of Peraea, and probably inhabited by heathen. But 
this lies two hours southeast of the southern end of the lake, too far to 
account for the simultaneous and direct rush of the herd into the lake. 
In this case topographical discovery may aid in determining the true 
reading. 



348 



BIBLE LANDS. 



tion Fund in 1866 brought nothing to light except some 
fragments of comparatively modern masonry and pottery. 
Lieut. Kitchener and Dr. Merrill claim to have seen more 
important remains in 1877, but we must wait for a more 
thorough search. In the evening we take a refreshing 
bath in the lake near the Fountain of the Fig-tree. 

From Khan Minyeh we pass through the remains of 
an aqueduct cut through the cliff along the shore, and 
now used as a horse-path, to Et-Tabighah, and thence to 
Tell-Hum and Kerazeh. Here every step is full of inter^ 
est to the Biblical student. 

Et-Tabighah is a charming little bay and a tract of 
land abounding in fresh streams and fountains and rank 
vegetation. The largest of the fountains, probably the 
fountain of Capharnaum mentioned byjosephus as water- 
ing the plain of Gennesaret, is half as large as the source 
of the Jordan at Banias, and rises with great force to the 
surface, at a temperature of 86^^ ; it is enclosed in an oc- 
tagonal reservoir, and some of its water is carried off in an 
aqueduct to one of five mills which were built by Dhaher 
el Omer, a Bedawin chief and benefactor. " Connected 
with this fountain are the remains of some remarkable 
works, which at one time raised its waters to a high level 
and conveyed them bodily into the plain of Gennesaret 
for the purposes of irrigation.*'* Some identify Et-Ta- 
bighah with Western Bethsaida, but it was probably the 
manufacturing suburb and harbor of Capernaum. 

We next reach Tell Hum, /. e.y the Hill of Nahum. Its 
name and ruins form a strong double argument for its iden- 
* Captain Wilson. 



CAPERNAUM, ETC. 



349 



tity with ancient Capernaum.* It lies on elevated rocky 
ground half a mile west of the lake shore, about midway 
between Khan Minyeh and the mouth of the Jordan at 
its entrance into the lake. There is not even a horse- 
path leading to it, and we must force our way for half an 
hour through dense tangles of tall briers and thistles. 
The ruins which have been described by Dr. Robinson, 
and more fully from careful examination (in 1866) by 
Captain Wilson,! are certainly the most remarkable in 
that whole region, and betray the presence of a large 
town. They cover a tract of about half a mile long and 
a quarter broad, and lie in confusion beneath the surface 
of the soil. They consist of foundations and walls of 
houses, and the broken columns, Corinthian capitals, and 
friezes of a synagogue built of white limestone, and hence 
called " the white synagogue." On a large block is a pot 
of manna engraved in commemoration of the manna in 
the wilderness, which typified the true manna from heav- 
en. If Tell Hum be Capernaum, as we are strongly in- 
clined to believe, then this synagogue must have been the 
same which the good Roman centurion built,^ and in 
which our Lord frequently taught, and delivered his won- 
derful discourse on the bread of life.§ 

* The Greek Ka(l)apvaovfj, corresponds to the Hebrew ciHj "IC-j 
village o£ Nahum (not the village of Consolation, x^pi-ov 7rapaK?i7]o ecjc, as 
Origen and Jerome explain it). J^e/r, or Aa/r, means a village, and when 
destroyed it becomes a Te/l, z. a hill or mound of stone and rubbish. 
The Jews locate at Tell Hum both the tomb of the prophet Nahum and 
that of Rabbi Tanchum. 

t T/ie Recovery of Jertisalefn, p. 268. 

i Luke 7 : 18 ; Matt. 8 : 8. 

§ Mark 1:21; Luke 4 : 33, 38 ; John 6 : 59. 

Bible Lands. 30 



350 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Kerazeh is one hour's journey (two miles) north of 
Tell Hum, and equals it in the extent of ruins. They 
comprise the remains of a synagogue of black basalt with 
Corinthian capitals, and dwellinghouses in a tolerably 
perfect state, the walls being in some cases six feet high. 
Captain Wilson discovered also traces of a paved road, 
which connected the place with the great caravan road 
to Damascus.* If Tell Hum be Capernaum, then Kera- 
zeh must be the ancient Chorazin. Both the name and 
the ruins favor this view. 

We return to our tent in Khan Minyeh with an over- 
whelming sense of the contrast between the past and the 
present, and the fearful guilt of neglecting the day of 
merciful visitation. 

Note. — We cannot close this chapter without some additional 
remarks on the hotly-contested question of the site of Capernaum. 
We have been strongly impressed on the spot in favor of the iden- 
tity of Tell Hum with Capernaum, and of Kerazeh with Chorazin ; 
yet we would hold ourselves open to new light which a more thor- 
ough exploration by means of excavations may throw on the prob- 
lem. f 

Biblical archaeologists and commentators are almost equally 
divided between Khan Minyeh and Tell Hum as the two chief 
claimants to the site of Capernaum. J A third theory, which locates 

* Recovery of Jerusalem^ p. 270. 

t The English Palestine Exploration Fund proposes to send out a 
special expedition to Galilee to determine the site of Capernaum, Beth- 
saida, and Chorazin. 

% For Khan Minyeh are Quaresmius (1639), Robinson (1838), Mac- 
gregor (reasoning at length from a sailor's standpoint, 1869), Porter (1875), 
Sepp, and quite recently Lieutenant Kitchener, of the English Exploration 
Fund, and Dr. Selah Merrill, of the American Exploration Society (1877). 
Among scholars who never visited Palestine, Keim, in his Geschichte Jesu 
V071 Nazara^ vol. I., pp. 607, seq., strongly plea-ds for Khan Minyeh. For 



CAPERNAUM, ETC. 



351 



it at 'Ain Mudawarah, or the Round Fountain, near the south end 
of the Plain of Gennesaret, a mile and a half from the lake, has 
been given up again by its chief advocate.* 

The following are the points to be considered in this contro^ 
versy : 

I. The Biblical 2LVgument turns chiefly on the question whether 
the Evangehsts locate Capernaum in the plain of Gennesaret, in 
which case it must have been in the neighborhood of Khan Minyeh, 
the northern end of that plain, assuming its identity with the pres^ 
ent El-Ghuweir. This is nowhere expressly stated, but it is inferred 
from the fact that Capernaum lay on the seashore (Matt. 4:13), and 
that Jesus, after the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, which 
occurred in a desert place near the northeastern extremity of the lake, 
and after the storm on the lake, landed in Gefmesaret (Matt. 14 : 34; 
Mark 6: 53) ;t while John says more specifically that he came to 
Capernau7n (6:17, 24, 59). But, on the other hand, it is stated that, 
before the miracle, the people, starting from Capernaum and other 
towns, reached the desert place on the opposite shore sooner by 
land than Jesus and his disciples by sea (Mark 6 : 33), which w^as 
quite possible if they came from the nearer Tell Hum, but is diffi- 
cult to explain if they started from Khan Minyeh, two or three 
miles farther south. It seems, then, that Jesus, early in the morn- 
ing after the miracle, arrived at Gennesaret (Matthew and Mark) 
and then proceeded to his proper home in Capernaum Qohn), where 
the returning multitude naturally sought him, and where he explainT 
ed in the synagogue the spiritual meaning of the miracle of the 
loaves and fishes. Mark's account (6 : 56) suggests that our Lord 
passed through several places in Gennesaret on his way to Caper- 
naum. 

Tell Hum are Pococke (1737), Burckhardt, Ritter, John Wilson, Thom- 
son, Hepworth Dixon, Renan, Captain Wilson, Stanley (in Preface to The 
Recovery of Jerusalejn^ 1871), Furrer, Badeker, and among commentators 
Ebrard, Ewald, and Plumptre. Alford, Meyer, and Lange are undecided, 
but lean to Tell Hum. 

* Canon Tristram. See his Bihle Places^ new ed. (1875), P- 262. 

t The best authorities in Matthew read, "they came to the land unto 
Gennesaret" (instead of "into the land of Gennesaret"), and in Mark, 
"passing over to the land, they came to Gennesaret and moored there," 
u e.^ came to anchor. 



352 



BIBLE LANDS, 



2. Josephus^ the Jewish historian of the apostoh'c age, who was 
very familiar with Galilee, decidedly favors the Tell Hum theory in 
the only two places where he alludes specifically to the place. He 
relates in his Life that, having been bruised by a fall from his 
horse at the mouth of the Jordan, he was first brought to the village 
" Kepharnome,"* and thence in the same night removed to Tarichese, 
at the southern end of the lake. Now it is much more natural to sup- 
pose that in his disabled condition he should have stopped at the near- 
est inhabited place, which was Tell Hum, than in the more distant 
Khan Minyeh. In his History of the Jewish War he speaks of a 
copious spring of ^' Kapharnaum" which watered the Plain of Gen- 
nesaret and abounded in lake-fish. f This is undoubtedly the 'Ain 
Tabighah, near Tell Hum; for it is very copious, abounds in fish, 
including the coracinus mentioned by Josephus, and is surrounded 
by tanks and the ruins of an aqueduct through which the water w^as 
carried down along the hillside on the shore to the northern head 
of the plain of Gennesaret.J Dr. Robinson (though evidently with 
some misgiving) sought the spring of Josephus in the Fountain of 
the Fig-tree ('Ain et Tin) on the shore below Khan Minyeh ; but 
this has no fish and is too small, and lies too low to be made avail- 
able for irrigating the plain. Tristram formerly sought the spring 
of Josephus in 'Ain Mudawarah, the Round Fountain, which is very 
abundant and helps to water the southern part of the plain, but is 
too far off from the lake. 

3. The Jewish and Arab tradition points invariably to Tell 
Hum.§ 

4. The ecclesiastical tradition, otherwise so busy in fixing sa- 
cred localities, is here vague, uncertain, and contradictory. 

5. geographical 2iXgMXi\^w\. is rather in favor of Khan Min- 
yeh, as being close by the seashore and admirably located for a 
commercial town and custom-station on the present highroad to 
Damascus ; but this is more than counterbalanced by the archceo- 

* Vita^ § 72 : m KtjfLTjv K€(l)apvG)(U7jv- leyoviievrjv. It is the Greek form 
of the name. 

t Bell Jud., HI. 10, 8.^ 

X See Captain Wilson, in The Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 271, and Tris- 
tram, Bible Places, p. 264. 

§ See Furrer, art. Kapernaum in Schenketl's Bibel Lexicon, Vol. III., 
p. 495, and Thomson, L, p. 546. 



CAPERNAUM, ETC. 



353 



logical argument, namely : the absence of ruins in Khan Minyeh 
and the presence of large ruins at Tell Hum, which has the addi- 
tional advantage of the identity of name, and was likewise connect- 
ed by roads with Chorazin and Damascus. 

The site of Bethsaida and Chorazin is somewhat dependent on 
that of Capernaum, but not altogether. 

The advocates of Khan Minyeh usually identify Bethsaida 
with Et-Tabighah, and Chorazin with Tell Hum. But what be- 
comes, then, of the ruins of Kerazeh? They cannot be ignored, 
and form a strong objection to this view. Others locate Bethsaida 
at Khan Minyeh. If we must distinguish two Bethsaidas, we would 
rather locate the western Bethsaida at Et-Tabighah, and Caperna- 
um at Tell Hum. 

But the whole assumption of two distinct Bethsaidas in close 
neighborhood is very questionable. It is much more probable, as 
already intimated, that they were but parts of one and the same 
town on both banks of the Jordan near its entrance into the lake, 
the eastern part in Gaulanitis being called Bethsaida Julias^ the 
western part in Gahlee being called Bethsaida of Galilee.^ About 
the site of the former there is no dispute. Philip the Tetrarch en- 
larged and beautified it and called it Julias in honor of the prin- 
cess Julia, the daughter of Augustus, about the same time when his 
brother, Herod the younger, built Tiberias, and named it so after 
the emperor Tiberius. A few ruins still remain of eastern Beth- 
saida, where Philip died and was buried in a costly tomb. The 
Evangelists mean always the western Bethsaida of Galilee, which, 
as the home of some of the chief apostles, was of far more conse- 
quence to them and to the world than the other. 

Returning to the woe of our Saviour over these three cities, 
we suppose that they are mentioned in the order of their guilt, 
Chorazin being named first and Capernaum last and with the 
greatest severity. That woe will ever be fulfilled, according to the 
measure of privilege and guilt, on all those who turn a deaf ear to 
the teaching of the Son of God ; while on the other hand, his words 

* John 12 : 21 : "Philip who was of Bethsaida of Galilee;" compare 
I : 44 : "Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter." In 
all other places it is simply called Bethsaida, as Mark 6 : 45; S:2?; Luke 
9 : 10. Comp. Thomson, T/ie Land and the Book, IT., 31. 

80^ 



354 



BIBLE LANDS. 



of wisdom spoken in those places, wherever they were, will contiuue 
to guide the Church in the way of life. His " Peace, be still !" will 
calm many a storm; his Lovest thou me?" will search many a 
heart ; and his " Follow thou me !" will be obeyed by many a dis- 
ciple even to a martyr's death. 

" No fable old, no mythic lore. 

Nor dream of bards and seers. 
No dead fact stranded on the shore 

Of the oblivious years ; 
But warm, sweet, tender even yet 

A present help is He ; 
And faith hath still its Olivet, 

And love its Galilee." 



C^SAR^A PHILIPPL 



355 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

C^SAR^A PHILIPPL 

From Khan Minyeh to Banias— The Waters of Me- 
rom — Dan — Cassaraea Phihppi — Beautiful Sce- 
nery—The Source of the Jordan— Peter's Confes- 
sion — The Rock of Ages— The Ruins of the Castle 
of Shubeibeh. 

" When Jesus came into the parts of Cassarea Philippi, he asked 
his disciples, saying, Who do men say that the Son of man is? 
And they said, Some say, John the Baptist : some, Ehjah ; and oth- 
ers, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But 
who say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered 
and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona : for flesh and 
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in 
heaven. And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter (Petros), 
and upon this Rock (Petra) I will build my church ; and the gates 
of Hades shall not prevail against it." Matt. i6: i3-i8. 

From Khan Minyeh we travel in two days to Banias, 
stopping over night at ^Ain Mellahah, which abounds in 
fresh water and vegetation. We were unable to visit 
Safed, which has no Biblical interest, but is one of the 
four sacred cities of the rabbinical Jews. It was visited 
by a fearful earthquake, January i, 1837, which is best 
described by Dr. Thomson, who visited the scene of 
destruction a few days after the calamity.* 

* The Land and the Book, T. 427-432. 



3S6 



BIBLE LANDS. 



We pass over the rough remains of an old Roman 
caravan road from Egypt to Damascus, take a last look 
at the shores of the Lake of Galilee, and turn our eyes 
towards the mountains of Lebanon. 

On the second day we come in sight of the Waters 
OF Merom, now called Lake Huleh, which has been 
fully explored and described by Rob Roy. It is a trian- 
gular sheet of water, about four miles long and three and 
a half miles broad, the apex being towards the south, 
where the Jordan issues from it. With the exception of 
the lake Phiala (Birket er-Ram), which has no outlet or 
inlet, it is the smallest of the lakes of Palestine, which 
increase in size from north to south. Near the waters 
of Merom Joshua utterly defeated King Hazor and his 
confederate kings, who assembled to attack him with a 
vast multitude, with horses and chariots.* It was the 
third and last decisive victory over the heathen Canaan- 
ites, and secured Galilee to Israel. Our attention is 
arrested by a caravan of fifty camels on their way from 
Damascus to Jerusalem, and by a Bedawin village of 
black tents, exhibiting the strange life of these wild chil- 
dren of nature. 

The second place of interest is Dan and the lower 
source of the Jordan. Scarcely any ruins mark the place, 
but it still lives in the Arab name^ Tell el Kady, i, e,y 
the Hill of the Judge.f We rest there an hour under a 
majestic oak, which has been compared to the venerable 

* Josh. II : 1-14. 

t Kady corresponds to the Hebrew Dajt, and to the former Phoenician 
name Laish. Judg. 18 : 29. 



C^SAR^A PHILIPPL 



357 



oak of Mamre at Hebron, and listen to the murmur of 
the famous river as it pours its fresh and abundant waters 
through jungles of rank vegetation down to the rich plain 
of Huleh. Dan is the northern boundary, as Beersheba 
the southern boundary, of Palestine proper ; hence the 
proverbial expression, "from Dan even to Beersheba," 
which from the time of the Judges has been in use to 
this day, both in its literal and figurative sense.* 

A delightful ride of an hour over a "park-like ver- 
dure, which casts a strangely beautiful interest over this 
last recess of Palestine," brings us to Banias or C^esa- 
RtEA Philippi. This is the best camping station before 
crossing the Hermon to Damascus. It is the most 
charming landscape in all Palestine, adorned with tropi- 
cal vegetation of flowers and trees, and musical with the 
murmur of rivulets and cascades. It lies at the foot of 
the monarch of Syrian mountains, which is seated 

" On a throne of rocks in a robe of clouds, 
With a diadem of snow." 

Stanley calls Banias, for. its situation, its exuberance of 
water, its olive groves, and its view over the distant plain, 
" a Syrian Tivoli." Here is the most picturesque of the 
three sources of the Jordan. Here that sacred stream 
gushes forth from the limestone rocks under an over- 
hanging cliff in several streams of clear, sparkling water, 
to unite four miles below with the source at Dan, and, 
after passing two lakes and the whole land of Palestine; 
to find its grave in the Dead Sea — a type of our human 
life, from the fresh hopes and aspirations of childhood 

* Judg. 20 : I ; I Sam. 3 : 20 ; 2 Sam. 3 : 10 ; 17:11. 



358 



BIBLE LANDS. 



and youth, through the bustling scenes, rapids, and wind- 
ings of manhood, to its termination in the mystery of 
death, yet with pledges of the forgiveness of sins, of 
regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and a resurrection to 
life everlasting. 

Banias blends the memories of many centuries and 
several religions. It is the northernmost boundary of 
Palestine, and the dividing line between the land of Israel 
and the region of the Gentiles. It is probably the same 
with Baal-Gad, included in Joshua s victories, who " took 
all the land, even from the Mount of Halak that goeth up 
to Seir, even unto Baal-Gad in the valley of Lebanon 
under Mount Hermon."* It has its ancient Greek and 
modern Arabic name from a sanctuary of Pan (Paneion, 
Paneas), which still survives in a large cave with several 
votive niches in the rocks. Philip the Tetrarch beautified 
it with temples, villas, and palaces, and called it " Csesa- 
raea Philippi " in honor of Caesar Augustus and in dis- 
tinction from Caesaraea on the Mediterranean, where 
Paul spent two years in prison. Under this Herodian 
Roman designation it appears in the New Testament, 
but it was afterwards changed into Caesaraea Paneas, and 
back again into Banias. 

The chief interest of the place is derived from the 
visit of our Lord, the confession of Peter, the prophecy 
concerning the Church, and the scene of transfiguration 
which took place six days afterwards, probably on Mount 
Hermon.f It was in view of the fountain of the Jordan 

* Josh. II : 17 ; comp. 12:7; 13 : 5. 
t See Chap. XXXIII. 



C^SAR^EA PHILIPPL 



359 



and of the immovable rocks of Mount Hermon, it was 
on this boundary line between the Jews and the Gentiles, 
that our Lord elicited the fundamental confession of the 
Christian faith, and announced the building of his Church 
universal, against which the gates of Hades shall never 
prevail. His word to Peter is the exegetical rock of the 
papacy, and has been more frequently quoted by popes, 
from Leo L to Leo XHL, than any other passage of the 
Bible ; but they forget that soon afterwards Christ called 
him " Satan" for minding ^'not the things of God but the 
things of men."* Peter still entertained at that time car- 
nal views of the kingdom of God, as if it were a kingdom 
of this world. And what is the papacy but a carnal 
anticipation of the kingdom of glory, when Christ shall 
rule King of nations as he now rules King of saints in 
his Church } It is very significant that Mark, who wrote 
under the inspiration of Peter, omitted the praise, but 
recorded the censure ; and that Peter himself in his first 
Epistle, as in prophetic foresight of the abuse of that pas- 
sage by his would-be successors, warns more earnestly 
than any other apostle against hierarchical pride and 
assumption. The eternal divinity of our Lord, as con- 
fessed by Peter in the name of the other apostles and of 
the whole company of the faithful, is the immovable rock 
of ages on which the Church is built. 

The modern Arab village of Banias has about fifty or 
sixty houses, built in part from old Roman ruins. A 
rough bridge of antique pillars leads over the Jordan. 
The Moslem inhabitants have a bad reputation ; two par- 

* Matt, 1 6 : 23. 



36o 



BIBLE LANDS, 



ties of tourists, one preceding and one following us, were 
robbed of watches and other valuables. 

We must not omit to ascend to the Castle of Shu- 
BEiBEH on the hill a little more than an hour from the 
village. It is the most extensive architectural ruin in Pal- 
estine, as large as the Castle of Heidelberg, and affords 
a magnificent view over the town, the hills of Bashan and 
Galilee, and the upper valley of the Jordan. Its origin 
and early history are unknown. It seems to combine 
Phoenician, Roman, and Saracenic architecture. It was 
taken and retaken during the Crusades. The Arab in- 
scriptions are from the thirteenth century. 



DAMASCUS. 



361 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

DAMASCUS. 

Approach to Damascus — The Conversion of Paul 
and his wonderful Character— The Street called 
Straight — Other Reminiscences— The Beauty and 
Fertility of Damascus— The Inside of the City— 
The House of a Jewish Banker — The Slave- 
Market— The Great Mosque — Mohammedan Fa- 
naticism—The Massacre of 1860 and its Result 
— Abd el Kader— Protestant Missions in Damas- 
cus. 

" I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things 
contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this I also did 
in Jerusalem : and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, hav- 
ing received authority from the chief priests ; and when they were 
put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them 
oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme ; and be- 
ing exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto 
foreign cities. Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority 
and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, I saw 
on the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, 
shining round about me and them that journeyed with me. And 
when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto 
m-e, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest 
thou me ? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, 
Who art thou, Lord ? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou perse- 
cutest. But rise, and stand upon thy feet : for I have appeared 
unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness 
both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in 
which I will appear unto thee ; delivering thee from the people, 
and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their 
eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power 
of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and 
inheritance among them that are sanctifxcd by faith that is in me. 

Bible Lands, 31 



362 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heav- 
enly vision : but showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jeru- 
salem, and throughout all the country of Judaea, and then to the 
Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works 
worthy of repentance." Acts 26 : 9-20. 

Damascus bursts upon the traveller from the desert 
like an enchanting vision. It is an Eden of life and 
beauty surrounded by death and desolation. The white 
city is a diamond set in the dark green of fruitful gar- 
dens. No wonder that the Mohammedans regard it as 
the earthly reflection of Paradise. 

" This region surely is not of the earth ; 
Was it not dropped from heaven ?" 

As we approach this remarkable city, the uppermost 
thought in our mind is the conversion of St. Paul, the 
greatest man in the history of the Church. For it was 
near Damascus, as he came from Jerusalem " breathing 
out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of 
the Lord," that the event took place which formed a turn- 
ing-point not only in his own life, but in the history of 
the world. Here the most dangerous enemy of Chris- 
tianity was converted into its most powerful promoter ; 
here the proud rabbi became a humble pupil of Jesus of 
Nazareth, the zealot for the law a herald of the gospel, 
the advocate of the letter that killeth a preacher of the 
life-giving spirit. Laying his learning, his influence, his 
prospects, his all, at the foot of the cross, he went forth, 
lonely by land and lonely by sea, without money, without 
friends, without family, but with the irresistible power of 
a sublime faith and a holy life, sailing serenely like the 



DAMASCUS. 



363 



sun above the clouds of trial and persecution, one against 
the world and for the world, a conqueror of Jews and 
Gentiles, of Greeks and barbarians, turning them from 
the service of sin to the service of the living God. " In 
journeyings often, in perils of water, in perils of rob- 
bers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the 
heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, 
in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren ; in 
weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger 
and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness;" 
with ''the care of all the churches" resting upon his 
sympathizing heart; ''troubled on every side, yet not 
distressed ; perplexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, 
but not forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed ; always 
bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus ;" 
satisfied with the all-sufificient grace of God, his "strength 
being made perfect in weakness," he fought " the good 
fight," he "finished his course," he "kept the faith," and 
carried away the unfading "crown of righteousness."* Was 
there ever a moral hero more pure, more unselfish, more 
devoted, more useful, more self-consistent, from his con- 
version in Damascus to his martyrdom in Rome t Next 
to Christ himself, St. Paul is perhaps the best personal 
evidence and recommendation of the religion he preach- 
ed. His character and conduct are fireproof against 
every assault, while his Epistles reveal one of the pro- 
foundest and clearest thinkers that ever lived. The most 
learned of modern skeptics (Dr. Baur of Tubingen) con- 
fessed at the close of his life that he could not account 

* 2 Cor. II : 26-28 ; 4 : 8-10 ; 12:9, 10; 2 Tim. 6 : 7, 8. 



364 



BIBLE LANDS. 



for the conversion of Paul without the miracle of the 
resurrection. A most significant concession. Here the 
rationalistic, the mythical, and the legendary theories 
utterly fail. The resurrection and personal appearance 
of Christ are the only rational explanation of such a stub- 
born fact as the life and work of Paul, and his ever-ex- 
panding influence on the history of mankind. 

An old tradition locates the conversion of the Jewish 
rabbi at a distance of about five miles from the city,* at 
a point where the direct road from Jerusalem crosses the 
one from Banias and Kefr Hauwar, near an oasis and a 
fountain, in view of the minarets of the city, the majestic 
Hermon, and the bare ridge of the Antilebanon. 

In the city itself the house of Ananias and the house 
of Judas are still shown. The street which is called 
Straight," where Ananias was to inquire after Saul of 
Tarsus, still bears that name. The window in the wall 
is also pointed out through vv^hich Paul was let down in 
a basket.f Considering the many changes which Da- 
mascus has undergone, it is of course impossible to rely 
on these traditions, but there can be no doubt about the 
general locality. 

The memory of Naaman, too, is perpetuated on the 

* Dr. J. L. Porter says, ten miles southwest of the city, near a vil- 
lage called Kaukab. I made many inquiries on the spot, but the infor- 
mation was vague and confused. The tradition may not go beyond the 
time of the Crusades, and has of course no critical value. 

t 2 Cor. II 132, 33; *'In Damascus the governor under Aretas the 
king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to appre- 
hend me: ancj through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, 
and escaped his hands.'' 



DAMASCUS, 



365 



banks of the Abana in a leper hospital which occupies 
the site of his house. " I have often visited it," says Dr. 
Porter,* " and when looking on its miserable inmates all 
disfigured and mutilated by their loathsome disease, I 
could not wonder that the heart of the little Jewish cap- 
tive was moved by her master's sufferings." 

Damascus is perhaps the oldest city in the world, and 
has maintained its proud position as *'the head of Syria"! 
through the horrors of pillage and conflagration under 
Syrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, and Turkish des- 
pots. It lay within the land of promise, which in its 
widest sense extended from the river of Egypt to the 
river Euphrates ;" and David subjected it to his sceptre, 
but only for a short period.^ It existed already nineteen 
hundred years before the Christian era, in the days of 
Abraham, whose trusted friend Eliezer hailed from there.§ 
Josephus traces its origin to Uz, the son of Aram, and 
grandson of Shem. 

But more remarkable than even its age is the beauty 
of its situation. Damascus is called by its own poets 
"The Pearl of the East," and ''The Eye of the Desert." 
It answers the Koran's description of Paradise, as an 
orchard bearing delicious fruit ever ready to drop into 
the mouth. The Damascenes believe that the Garden 
of Eden was located here, and that the clay of which 
Adam was formed was taken from the banks of the Aba- 

* The Giant Cities of Baskait, p. 344. t Isaiah 7 :8. 

X Gen. 15 : 18 (but comp. Numb. 34 ; 7, 8; Josh. 13 : 5) ; 2 Sam. 8 : 5, 
6; I Chron. 18 : 6; i Kings 11 ; 24. 
§ Gen. 15:2; compare 14:15. 

31* 



366 



BIBLE LANDS. 



na. Fifteen miles north of Damascus, on a lofty cliff, 
the reputed tomb of Abel, which measures thirty feet in 
length, is shown ! 

The main source of the beauty and fertility of Da- 
mascus is the Barada (the Amana or Abana of the Scrip- 
tures, the Chrysorrhoas or Gold River of the Greeks), a 
broad and deep stream which rushes down from the An- 
tilebanon and along the north wall of the city, distributes 
its blessings through innumerable channels to the gar- 
dens and houses, and then hides itself in a desert lake. 
It is the life of Damascus, as the desert is its fortifica- 
tion. Well might Naaman the Syrian ask the messen- 
ger of Elisha, Are not Abana (or Amana) and Pharpar 
(A'waj), rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of 
Israel ? May I not wash in them, and be clean This 
river of life calls forth a luxuriant vegetation around the 
city. The eye feasts upon the gardens of olives, walnuts, 
apricots, pomegranates, poplars, cypresses, and palms, 
arrayed in a rich variety of colors, the dark green, the 
purple red, the silvery white. 

The best view in the city itself can be obtained from 
the minaret of the Great Mosque, and a more command- 
ing one from the barren hill Kasiun. Here Mohammed, 
then a mere camel-driver from Mecca, stood in amaze- 
ment at the scene below, and turning away, without en- 
tering the city, he said, Man can have but one paradise, 
and my paradise is fixed above !" The guide of the 
prophet exclaimed, " Here let me die !" A mosque called 
" Kubbet en-Ntisr" is built on this hill in memory of the 

* 2 Kings 5:12. 



DAMASCUS. 



367 



visit of Mohammed^ and contains the grave of his guide. 
The English historian, Henry Thomas Buckle, who died 
in Damascus, May 29, 1862, said, "This is indeed worth 
all the toil and danger it has cost me to come here." 
Dean Stanley writes, There may be other views in the 
world more beautiful; there can hardly be another at 
once so beautiful and so instructive." 

But the inside of Damascus is anything but a para- 
dise. In this case truly distance lends enchantment to 
the view," while "familiarity breeds contempt." The city 
is a labyrinth of narrow, crooked, ill-paved, dirty streets, 
where men, camels, donkeys, and dogs are crowding each 
other and huddled together in inextricable confusion. I 
saw a new-born donkey in the middle of the street. Car- 
avans come and go from Bagdad and Mecca. Merchants 
sit and smoke and sip coffee in front of their shops and 
bazaars. The women, veiled all over, move shyly along 
like ghosts, wrapped up in a winding-sheet, and walking 
on two feet encased in yellow shoes. The miscellaneous 
mass of humanity in all kinds of picturesque costumes is 
a striking and interesting sight, though it has lost its 
novelty to one coming from Cairo, which, as a city, is 
more cosmopolitan, as it is also three or four times larger. 
The bazaars are famous for their treasures of silk, car- 
pets, saddles, silver and gold ornaments, turbans, slip- 
pers, blades, swords, and recall the words of Ezekiel ad- 
dressed to Tyre : "Damascus was thy merchant in the 
multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude 
of all riches."* There is but one good hotel in Damas- 

* Ezekiel 27 : 18, 



368 



BIBLE LANDS. 



cus, once kept by a Greek, Demetri, now by his widow, 
near the starting-place of the French dihgence. It is a 
thoroughly Oriental house, with a refreshing fountain, 
flowers, lemon and orange trees in the marble-paved 
court, and is visited in the evening by venders of curios- 
ities, among whom a patriarchal-looking crafty Mussul- 
man attracted my attention. There are costly houses of 
rich Moslems and Jews in Damascus, but the outside 
is very forbidding, and you have to enter into the in- 
terior court through a dirty lane, sometimes through a 
stable. 

I was admitted to the house of a wealthy Jewish 
banker, who takes pleasure in showing his marble-paved 
court and fountain and his luxuriously-furnished rooms 
to strangers. When I read and translated the Hebrew 
inscription on the door, and repeated some passages from 
the Hebrew Psalter, he and his father and wife were 
greatly delighted, and showed me every attention ; but 
when, in answer to a question on the Eastern problem, I 
said that my sympathies were with the oppressed Chris- 
tians, his countenance fell, and he exclaimed piteously, 
"And such Christians!" He thought that the Ameri- 
cans ought to help the Jews in regaining Palestine. I 
replied that their own Rothschild could buy the whole 
country and not feel it. I learned afterwards that he 
lent the Turkish government ;^40,ooo, but can get no 
interest, and will never see the principal. 

A painfully interesting sight is the slave-market in 
an old khan ; I saw, however, only one Nubian slave- 
woman, shut up in a dark room and apparently anxious 



DAMASCUS. 



369 



that we should buy her. Slavery and polygamy are twin 
children of barbarism, and Mohammedanism has neither 
the power nor the disposition to abolish them. 

Damascus is said to contain 248 mosques and Mos- 
lem schools. By far the most interesting is the Great 
Mosque, one of the four chief sanctuaries of Islam, 
next to those of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. It 
was first a temple of Jupiter, then a Christian basilica 
dedicated to John the Baptist. It is said to contain his . 
head, and also the tomb of Saladin in strange combina- 
tion. It is a very imposing building, but poorly kept and 
inferior in beauty to the new Mosque of Mohammed Ali 
in Cairo. One of its four minarets is called Minaret of 
Isa (lesus), and is believed to be the spot from which 
Christ will judge the world. The Arab historian of Da- 
mascus, Ibn Asaker, says, When Jesus comes to judge 
the world, he will descend here and assemble in the 
mosque Moslems, Christians, and Jews. Then the names 
of the believers will be read from the great book of God, 
and the Christians and Jews will learn to their amaze- 
ment that only Moslems are inscribed in the book of 
life." But the same event is also to take place, accord- 
ing to another Mohammedan tradition, from the temple 
area in Jerusalem over the valley of Jehoshaphat, where 
all mankind shall be assembled before Jesus and Moham- 
med. This tribute to the dignity of Christ is remarkable. 

Another curious fact is that on the outside of a wall ^ 
of the Great Mosque still stands over an ancient arch 
the inscription in large Greek letters: Thy kingdom, 
O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion 



370 



BIBLE LANDS, 



endureth throughout all generations."* The inscription 
is a standing protest against Mohammedan usurpation 
and a prophecy of the ultimate destiny of the building. 
It is, however, not easy of access. We had to reach it 
over the Silversmith's Bazaar by means of a ladder, and 
had to pay extra backsheesh for the trouble. 

Damascus is the hotbed of Mohammedan fanaticism. 
The white-turbaned and long-bearded Moslems mingle 
curses on the Christian dogs with their prayers to Allah. 
The burning hatred may break out at any time if not re- 
strained by fear of the consequences. Every Christian here 
remembers the frightful massacre of July, i860, when at 
least 2,500 adult male Christians were murdered in cold 
blood without provocation. Abd el Kader, the Algerian ex- 
chief, who still lives here in honorable exile, a vigorous old 
man of seventy years, and who was visited by some of our 
party, behaved nobly on that occasion, and with his Moor- 
ish retinue saved the lives of many hundreds, while the pa- 
sha and the Turkish officials did not move a hand. When 
his own life was threatened, the hero coolly mounted his 
horse, drew his sword, and charged into the crowd of fu- 
rious fanatics, exclaiming, " Wretches ! Is this the way 
you honor the Prophet } May his curses be upon you ! 
Shame upon you, shame ! You will yet live to repent. 
You think you may do as you please with the Christians, 
but the day of retribution will come. The Franks will 
yet turn your mosques into churches." The venerable 

* 7) ^aoikua- (jov, XpcarE^ (3am?ie!a ttuvtov tcjv aluvuv, kol rj deairorla gov 
ev irdori yevea Koi yevea. Psa. 145 : 13, Sept. ; the word Xpiari is an inter- 
polation. 



DAMASCUS. 



371 



Rev. S. Robson, of the Irish Protestant mission, who was 
here during those days of terror, and is here again filling 
the place of Mr. Wright, gave me a description of the 
infernal tragedy.* His colleague. Rev. William Graham, 
was treacherously murdered while attempting to save 
another, and Mr. Robson himself was only spared by be- 
ing in the house of a Mohammedan. The Christian quar- 
ter still bears traces of the terrible destruction to which 
it was then exposed. It is an honor to France that she 
sent a corps of 10,000 men to Syria in the interest of hu- 
manity and Christianity. Since then the admirable road 
from Beirut to Damascus was built by a French com- 
pany, and a daily diligence established. Since then a 
Christian governor was secured for the Lebanon district, 
to the great advantage of the people. Thus the wrath 
of man" was overruled for good. 

It seems a hopeless task to plant Protestant Chris- 
tianity in such a place as Damascus. Nevertheless, the 
thing has been done, and not altogether without result. 
Since 1843 the United Presbyterian Church of America 
and the Presbyterian Church of Ireland have maintained 
jointly a mission, with a church for converts from Jews 
and Greek Christians, and with schools. The buildings 
were burned during the massacre of i860, but have been 
substantially rebuilt, chiefly by the munificence of an 
English lady, Miss Eliza Bromfield. The Protestant 
community was scattered, but is now larger than before 

* See the accounts by Col. Churchill, and in Dr. Porter's Gmnf Cities 
of Bashan^ pp. 350 and 361. The lowest estimate there given of the num- 
ber of adult male Christians massacred in the villages of Damascus, Her- 
mon, and Antilebanon, in June and July, i860, is six thousand. 



372 



BIBLE LANDS, 



the massacre. Worship is conducted twice every Sunday 
in Arabic, and occasionally also in English for the bene- 
fit of travellers. The present missionaries are Mr. Craw- 
ford of America, and (temporarily) Mr. Robson of Ire- 
land. Mr. Crawford informed me that the Greeks have 
been stirred up to greater zeal for education, and buy 
many New Testaments in the Arabic version of Dr. Van 
Dyck from the Protestant missionaries. Many of their 
children and also a few Mohammedans visit their schools. 

Besides this Presbyterian mission, there is an Episco- 
pal mission and chapel built by the London Society for 
the Conversion of the Jews, the same which built Christ 
Church in Jerusalem and several schools in Palestine. I 
attended the English service (the last in the season), con- 
ducted by a converted German Jew. Among the hear- 
ers was the eccentric English Lady Ellenborough, who, 
after trying two or three civilized Christian husbands, 
married a Bedawin sheikh, with whom she is said to have 
lived happily for twenty years. She owns a fine house 
and garden in the city, but in former years she preferred 
tent-life in the desert. 

Adjoining the Episcopal chapel are several fine school- 
rooms, where boys and girls receive a Christian educa- 
tion. These schools were founded by the late Mrs. Thomp- 
son of Beirut, who has done so much good for the rising 
generation of Syria. 

These are small beginnings, but the time is not far 
distant when, as Abdel Kader prophesied, ''the mosques 
of Damascus will be turned into Christian churches." 



BEIRUT, 



373 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

BEIRUT. 

Beauty, Prosperity, and Prospects of Beirut — Prog- 
ress since I860 — Influence of American and 
English Missionaries — The Syrian Protestant 
College — Presbyterian Missions— British Mission 
Schools of Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Mott — 
Scotch Mission School — The Sisters of Kaisers- 
. werth — The Jesuits — Educational Statistics of 
Beirut and Syria. 

Beirut is the most — not to say the only — civilized 
and prosperous city in Syria and Palestine. It is beau- 
tifully situated at the foot of the goodly Mount Lebanon, 
which like an eternal wall protects it on the east, and 
on the shore of the Mediterranean, which connects it 
with all parts of the world. The rosy tint of the former 
and the deep blue of the latter, form a picturesque con- 
trast. The scenery resembles that of Naples and Pa- 
lermo. The approach from the harbor, or from the 
mountain over the Damascus road, is grand and impo- 
ing. Old Lebanon looks like an august monarch with 
a diadem of stars around his snowy turban, with his head 
in heaven and his feet upon the sea." The climate is 
healthy, semi-tropical, and moderated by the sea-breeze. 
The harbor is the best on the Syrian coast. Fifty years 
ago the population did not exceed 5,000; now it amounts 
to 80,000, of whom the majority are Christians, divided 
into half-a-dozen sects — Orthodox Greeks, Papal Greeks, 

Bible Lati.Is. 3*2 



374 



BIBLE LANDS, 



Maronites, Armenians, Protestants, etc. Then there was 
hardly a decent house outside of the walls, and the mar- 
kets and shops depended for supplies on Sidon; now 
two-thirds of the people reside in comfortable dwellings 
and gardens in the charming suburbs, and Sidon is 
wholly dependent on Beirut. The usual scenes of 
Oriental beggary, misery, and filth, are not wanting; 
but there is more energy, enterprise, and thrift here 
than anywhere between Jerusalem and Damascus, not 
excluding these cities. No city in Turkey has grown so 
fast, and nothing can stop her further growth, especially 
if she should be connected with the projected railroad to 
the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf. 

After the frightful massacre of i860, the Lebanon 
district was placed under a Christian governor. Since 
then, various improvements have been introduced. A 
diligence road was built to Damascus by a French com- 
pany ; carriages came into use ; the British and Foreign 
Water and Gas Works Company was organized, and 
supplies the town with good water from the Dog river 
(opened May, 1875). There are several printing-offices 
(the American Protestant and the Jesuit are the largest), 
Arabic newspapers, a bookstore, and two photographic 
establishments. Mr. B. Bistanys, a convert of the Amer- 
ican Mission, and elder of the church (originally a Mar- 
onite), whom I visited in his large and comfortable 
house, has also a printing establishment, edits two jour- 
nals, semi-weekly and fortnightly, and has begun the 
publication of an Arabic Universal Cyclopaedia, in six- 
teen volumes, based in part on Appleton's, with a sub- 



BEIRUT. 



375 



scription list of from twelve to thirteen hundred. All 
this speaks of progress in the stagnant East. 

Ruskin calls Tyre, Venice, and England, the three 
thrones which men have erected, beyond all others, to 
mark their dominion over the sea. Of Tyre only the 
memory remains ; of Venice, the ruins ; England which 
inherits their greatness, if it forget their example, may 
be led through prouder eminence to less pitied destruc- 
tion."* But the day of England's downfall is yet afar 
off, and Macaulay's New-Zealander, w^ho, from a broken 
shaft of London Bridge, is to sketch the ruins of St. 
Paul's, is not yet born, and I hope he may never be 
born. England's mission in the East has only begun. 

May not Beirut through English and American influ- 
ence become a second and a better Tyre } Its history goes 
far back into antiquity, but its importance lies chiefly in 
the future. The Berytus of the Phoenicians, Greeks, and 
Romans, the Saracens and the Turks, will be far out- 
stripped by the Christian Beirut of the next generation. 
Though not mentioned in the Bible, or mentioned but 
once,t it is already one of the missionary centres for 
the revival of Bible Christianity in Bible Lands. 

Among the chief instrumentalities for the develop- 

* Stones of Veftice^ ch. i. 

t Perhaps under the name Berothai, 2 Sam. 8:8. After the conquest 
of Damascus David may have crossed over the Lebanon to her seaport. 
The identity with Berothah, mentioned in Ezek. 47 ; 16, as a northern 
boundary of the land of Israel, is more doubtful. Some think that Baal- 
berith, Judg. 8 : 33, was the god Baal of Beirut. Thomson is disposed to 
derive the name from beer or well^ "the City of Wells." Almost every 
house in Beirut has a well. On the history of Beirut see Thomson, I., 



376 



BIBLE LANDS. 



ment of this city are the benevolent and literary institu- 
tions founded by foreign missionary zeal. They have 
already done not a little towards the commercial growth 
and secular prosperity of the place, and are destined to 
do a great deal more. 

First among them are the American Protestant insti- 
tutions under the care of the Presbyterian Board of For- 
eign Missions in New York. They are manned by a 
noble band of Christian scholars, mostly graduates of 
the Union and Princeton Theological Seminaries, who 
would do honor to any church in any country. I knew 
them before, and spent most of my time with them while 
in Beirut. Dr. H. H. Jessup, Dr. Daniel Bliss, Dr. C. V. 
A. Van Dyck, Dr. George E. Post, Prof. James S. Den- 
nis, Prof. Edwin R. Lewis, and Prof. Hall are in good 
health and spirits, and looking hopefully to a great fu- 
ture which is dawning on the East. The venerable Dr. 
W. M. Thomson has returned to his native America, and 
is preparing a new edition of his well-known work on 
''The Land and the Book," with superior illustrations. 
I heard Dr. Jessup preach an Arabic sermon (which I 
did not understand) to a large and attentive native con- 
gregation, in the beautiful mission church built by his 
energy and zeal. A new mission chapel, with a native 
pastor, has just been opened in the eastern part of the 
city. I examined the adjoining American Female 
Seminary, and the Printing Press and Bible Depository, 
which sent forth in 1876 no less than 38,450 volumes 
(or 13,786,980 pages) of •Bibles, tracts, and other books, 
including a series of text-books and juvenile works. 



BEIRUT, 



Z77 



I visited the Syrian Protestant College/' which is 
independent of the Mission, but grew out of it, and pro- 
motes its interest. It numbers over one hundred pupils 
of different creeds and nationalities. Proselytism is not 
attempted, but the Christian spirit and example of the 
teachers tend to educate liberal Christian gentlemen. 
The funds were collected in America and England. I 
was delighted with the substantial buildings, which are 
located on a prominence in the best part of the city, the 
west end, and can be seen from afar. The college em- 
braces, besides the literary department, a Medical school, 
an Observatory, a library, and a museum of natural 
curiosities. The medical department, under the manage- 
ment of Dr. Post, commends itself to citizens of all 
classes. Dr. Post, who is an excellent practitioner as 
well as teacher of the healing art, and a preacher of the 
gospel, went to Constantinople in the same steamer with 
us to secure government recognition of the status of the 
Medical College, and its diplomas. He had the highest 
recommendations to the Turkish Government from the 
Governor of the Lebanon, whom he laid under obliga- 
tion by a successful surgical operation. Just then there 
was great need of good physicians and surgeons for the 
army. The Observatory is managed by Dr. Van Dyck, 
who is an astronomicr and physician, as well as an Arabic 
Bible translator, and sends daily by telegraph meteo- 
rological observations to the Observatory of Constanti- 
nople.* 

* The faculty of this important and hopeful institution consists at 
present of the following gentlemen, all Americans : Rev. Daniel Bliss^ 

32* 



378 



BIBLE LANDS. 



At the time of my visit the Riisso-Turkish war then 
going on was the chief topic of conversation. The 
American missionaries took a correct view of the East- 
ern problem, and expected good results from the war, 
though they were not without anxiety as to its immediate \ 
consequences, which might possibly compel them to sus- 
pend their labors for a season. They see that the ulti- 
mate mission field in the East are the Mohammedans, 
and not the old Christian Churches, which ought to help 
themselves ; and that the Mohammedans will not be 
accessible till the downfall of the political power of the 
Turks and of the supremacy of the Koran.* 

Beirut is the best base of operations for Eastern mis- 
sions. The entire Syrian Mission of the American Pres- 
byterian Board embraces according to the statistics of 
1877, 29 American missionaries (12 men and 17 women), 
135 native Syrian laborers, 68 preaching stations, 83 
schools, 619 communicants, 3,925 Sabbath-school schol- 
ars. The principal stations outside of Beirut are Tripoli, 
Abeih, Sidon, and Zahleh. I saw Rev. Rev. G. F. Dale 
and Fred. W. March, graduates of Princeton, who labor 

D. D., President, Rev. C. V. Van Dyck, M. D., D. D., Rev. George E. 
Post, M. D., Rev. D. Stuart Dodge, M. A., Rev. John Wortabet, M. D., 
Rev. Edwin R. Lewis, M. D., Harvey Porter, B. A., with a corps of na- 
tive tutors. 

* In this connection it may be proper to refer to the testimony of the 
Earl of Beaconsfield who, in a dinner speech in the London Mansion- 
House, given to the British Plenipotentiaries at the Berlin Congress, 
called the American missionaries in the Turkish Empire, "men of the 
highest principles, of even a sublime character, men who devoted their 
lives to the benefit of their fellow-creatures, and sought no reward but the 
approval of their own consciences." A testimony equally favorable was 
borne to them several years ago by Lord Shaftesbury. 



BEIRUT 



379 



at the last-named place with youthful enthusiasm, and 
feel greatly encouraged. 

Besides these flourishing Presbyterian institutions, 
the schools of Mrs. Mott, Miss Taylor, and the Deacon- 
esses of Kaiserswerth deserve most honorable mention. 

Mrs, Mentor Mott, a very wealthy and accomplished 
English lady, who built and occupies the finest house in 
all Syria, on an elevated spot in a garden with a magnifi- 
cent view over the city, the sea, and the mountain, has 
assumed the care and management of the British Syrian 
Schools and Bible Missions,'' which were founded by the 
late Mrs. Bowen Thompson in i860, immediately after 
the massacre of the Christians in Lebanon and Damas- 
cus. She kindly conducted me through these schools. 
I was especially pleased with the singing of the pupils, 
and with the reading of the English Scriptures by the 
blind girls. The number of her schools in Beirut is 
twelve, and of pupils about 1,500. They are supported 
by voluntary contributions, and are independent of eccle- 
siastical control. Mrs. Mott is an Episcopalian, but 
attends with her teachers and pupils the Presbyterian 
Mission church of Dr. Jessup. 

A Scotch lady. Miss Jessie Taylor, conducts a Board- 
ing and Day School for Moslem girls, which I was una- 
ble to visit, but heard well spoken of. 

The Prussian Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth conduct 
a female Boarding-school and Orphanage of about 200 
pupils with admirable tact and zeal, and have also the 
spiritual care of the Hospital of the (Prussian) Order of 
the Knights of St. John. I was present at their May 



BIBLE LANDS. 



festival which was celebrated with characteristic German 
heartiness. The pupils and orphans represented nearly 
all the races, sects, and colors of the East, and looked 
contented and happy. I visited afterwards the school of 
the Deaconesses at Smyrna and found it likewise a 
model of cleanliness, order and devotion. 

The Jesuits are also very active in Beirut in the in- 
terest of the Roman-Catholic church. They have re- 
ceived large reinforcements from Germany since their 
expulsion from that country. They are just now issuing 
a new Arabic translation of the Bible, evidently in oppo- 
sition to Dr. Van Dyck's translation, which is widely 
circulated in the East. The Jesuit translation is a sig- 
nificant tribute to the value of the Protestant work. I 
am told that it is made in the high Arabic, while Dr. 
Van Dyck's is in the middle Arabic, which is more pop- 
ular and intelligible. No doubt it follows the Latin 
Vulgate, to which every Roman-Catholic version of the 
Scriptures must be conformed. It is illustrated by 
pictures, and is too dear for general circulation : for in 
the Roman Church the Bible is at best a book for the 
clergy, but not for the people. 

I leave Beirut with a hopeful view of the future. 
The Presbyterian Board of Missions could not have 
selected a better spot for its work in the East. Jerusa- 
lem, of course, is much nearer and dearer to the heart of 
Christians, but is a more difficult field, and is already oc- 
cupied by the Church of England. There is an amicable 
understanding between the Presbyterian and the Epis- 
copalian missionaries, that the former should labor in 



BEIRUT. 



381 



Syria, the latter in Palestine. The supporters of the 
Palestine missions are largely interested in the conver- 
sion and restoration of the Jews, and wish to be near at 
hand when the millennial kingdom shall be established. 
There is an abundance of work for both, and they de- 
serve alike the sympathy and support of all Protestant 
Christians. 

To give the reader an idea of the educational mission 
work carried on in Beirut and neighborhood, we append 
the statistics kindly furnished to me by Dr. Jessup. 



BEIRUT SCHOOLS AT THE CLOSE OF 1877. 







. 










Schoo 


Teach 



w 


12 


Total. 


Protestant schools, American, English, ) 


30 


116 


761 


2,281 


3,042 




15 


33 


928 


425 


1,353 


Papal (United) Greek 


3 


II 


227 




227 


Maronite (Roman-Catholic) 


10 


25 


820 




820 




I 




80 




80 




3 


7 


125 




125 




14 


29 


1,024 




1,024 


Sisters of Charity (Roman-Catholic) 


4 


31 




1,110 


1,110 




2 


18 




340 


340 




II 


23 


805 


b'05 




93 


295 


4,770 


4,156 


8,926 



382 



BIBLE LANDS, 



o 
w 

O 
U 
W 





i-O ro r^ rl-vO O rj- ro M O O COVO O O 
O cvi 0^\0 "^^O tJ- i-H o O O 

ro cT ^-^ 


oo 

lO 


•S[OoqDS 




oo 


-iunumio3 


0\ »^ w M O 
1-1 H-i M GN ^ 


ON 




OOO oooo ooo o 

CO O CO M M O ^ 

00 M W M C<l M 


00 

o 

ON 
CO 




VD 


ON 
CO 


•saaaoqEq 


»J^I>.^ON^M co'-ori M t>^iOt>>,i-H CO ^00 

CO CO H-i I-I 


o 
CO 

CO 






00 



C/3 

H 

u 
o 

O 

C/D 



a o 

3 



I o - 
logs 



.2 O 

(U c/3 a 



^5 



C/3 O 

^ - § 



.So" 

o o 

S 



OS 



S o ^ 



•V^ o 
PQ Oi 

CO 

2 



o_2.o 

c ^ 
c o 

c/) w) cj 

^ ^ c/^ -r; 

'^'5 ^-^ 

J5 ^ 

C/3 ^ 5 rr^ 

S 

^ b b o 



FAREWELL TO THE HOLY LAND. 383 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

FAREWELL TO THE HOLY LAND. 

General Impression — The Harmony between the 
Land and the Book— Recapitulation of What I 
Saw— Contrast between the Past and the Pres- 
ent — The whole Land a venerable Ruin — Pros- 
pects of a better Future— Farewell to Palestine. 

" Those fields, 
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet 
Which, eighteen centuries ago, were nailed, 
For our advantage, on the bitter cross." 

SHAKESPEARE. 

At last I have fulfilled a long-cherished desire to see 
with my own eyes and to tread with my own feet the 
most sacred and the most classical land in the world. 
My only regret is that I could not visit it twenty or 
thirty years ago, to make earlier use of the experience 
for Bible studies. 

I have been neither favorably nor unfavorably disap- 
pointed. I found the country and the people pretty 
much as I expected, but I trust I understand both better 
than before. My faith in the Bible has not been shaken, 
but confirmed. Many facts and scenes, which seem to 
float ghost-like in the clouds to a distant reader, assume 
flesh and blood in the land of their birth. There is a 
marvellous correspondence between the Land and the 
Book. The Bible is the best handbook for the Holy 



384 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Land, and the Holy Land is the best commentary on 
the Bible.* 

We began our journey with Egypt, the cradle of the 
people of Israel, and we found it still a " land of bond- 
age" under new masters, a smiling garden and a dreary 
desert, covered with the colossal ruins of the Pharaohs. 
We crossed the Red Sea, and got a better idea of the 
miraculous passage of the Israelites. We followed their 
course through the great and terrible wilderness," and 
learned to appreciate their trials, and the benefits of this 
long training-school for their manhood. We stood on 
Mount Sinai, the pulpit of Moses proclaiming the law of 
God for all ages, and we were indelibly impressed with the 
adaptation of the awfully sublime scenery to the event 
which took place there. We sat under the venerable oak 
of Mamre, where the father of the faithful entertained his 
celestial visitors, and we approached, not without some 
danger from Moslem fanaticism, the threshold of the 
Machpelah which conceals the mortal remains of the 
patriarchs. We descended to the cave of Bethlehem 
where the Saviour of the world was born, and we walked 
over the fields where the shepherds heard the music of 
angels singing, Glory to God and peace on earth. We 
spent, with mingled feelings of joy and sadness, the Latin 
and Greek Easter at Jerusalem, the queen of holy cities, 
still enthroned on her hills, but a lonely widow, "with 
dust on her forehead and chains at her feet." We walk- 

* " V accord frappant des textes et des lieux, la incrveilleuse harmonie 
de rideal evangelique avec le paysage qui lui servit de cadre furent pour moi 
comme une revelation^'* Renan. 



FAREWELL TO THE HOLY LAND. 385 



ed about Sion, we marked her bulwarks, we considered 
her palaces, and we found her still beautiful for situa- 
tion, the joy of the whole earth" on account of the won- 
derful things said and done and suffered there for the 
benefit of mankind. We wept in Gethsemane, where 
Jesus, overw^helmed with the load of the sins of the world, 
was " exceeding sorrowful, even unto death and we re- 
joiced on Mount Olivet, where he ascended to his throne 
of ever-present and all-sufficient grace. We wandered 
through the ruins of Bethany, where Lazarus and the 
sisters entertained their divine Lord and witnessed his 
power over death and the grave. We looked from the 
heights of Neby Samwil over the battlefield of Gibeon 
and Beth-horon, the Plain of Sharon, and the orange- 
groves of Jaffa, We floated on the salt waters of the 
Dead Sea, in full view of the mountains of Moab, where 
Jehovah kissed Moses to death," after showing him the 
beauties of the Land of Promise. We took a refreshing 
bath in the swift-fiowing waters of the Jordan at the tra- 
ditional site of the baptism of Christ. We spent a night 
at Jericho, and barely escaped ^'falling among robbers." 
We rested on a stony bed at Bethel, dreaming the dream 
of Jacob, and seeing the shining staircase of prayer and 
faith that leads even from the humblest spot on earth to 
the throne of grace. We saw the ruins of Shiloh, which 
once sheltered the Ark of the Covenant. We sat on Ja- 
cob's Well, where our Lord, weary of travel, but not of 
his work, offered to a poor woman the water of life, which 
has since quenched the thirst of innumerable souls. We 
ascended the ruins of the temple on Mount Gerizim, 

V,:. k- Lands, 33 



386 



BIBLE LANDS. 



where the paschal sacrifice is still offered from year to year, 
according to the letter of the Mosaic law, by the small 
remnant of the Samaritan sect. We rode over the fruitful 
fields and hills of Samaria through which Jesus passed on 
his annual visits to Jerusalem, scattering flowers of holy 
thoughts and deeds on the way. Our eyes feasted on 
the Plain of Esdraelon, so often reddened with blood, and 
spread out like a green carpet of waving grainfields. We 
drank from the Fountain of Gideon, and heard his battle- 
cry ringing through the air, " The sword of the Lord and 
of Gideon." We lamented, in view of Mount Gilboa, with 
David the death of Jonathan, whose love to him was 
wonderful, passing the love of women." We lunched 
at Nain, where our Lord comforted a widow by raising 
her only son from the dead. We spent a memorable 
Sabbath in Nazareth, where the Saviour of the world 
lived thirty years in quiet waiting and preparation for his 
work, misunderstood by his own townsmen and kindred. 
We ascended the lovely Tabor, and the lofty Hermon, 
where Christ revealed his glory to Moses and Elijah and 
his beloved disciples. We rode on the lonely banks and 
sailed on the blue waters of the Lake of Gennesaret, so 
beautiful even in its desolation, so hallowed by the foot- 
steps of the Master, 

" Most human and yet most divine, 
The flower of man and God.'' 

We made our way through thistles and briers to the ru- 
ins of Tell Hum, and saw the broken columns of the syn- 
agogue once resounding with words that will never die. 
We camped at Caesaraea Philippi, and confessed with Pe- 



FAREWELL TO THE HOLY LAND. 387 



ter, Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words 
of eternal life. And we know and are sure that thou art 
the Christ, the Son of the living God." 

Palestine is a Ubrary of revelation engraved on stones. 
The mountains and hills, the lakes and rivers, the caves 
and rocks are alive with Biblical stories. The meanest 
spot records some deep thought or noble deed that in-, 
spires the best of men to this day. It is still the old Ca^ 
naan, 

" In all the imploring beauty of decay." 

But in no country is the contrast between the glori- 
ous past and the miserable present so startling and sad. 
Take away the ideal element, and the charm is gone. 
The whole land is a venerable ruin. It is hardly worth 
visiting except for its reminiscences. Yet even in these 
ruins it confirms the truth of prophecy. I beheld, and 
lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities 
thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, 
and by his fierce anger. For thus hath the Lord said, 
The whole land shall be desolate ; yet will I not make a 
full end."* " Upon the land of my people shall come up 

thorns and briers until the Spirit be poured upon us 

from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field."! 

When shall the Lord bring again the captivity of 
Jacobus tents, and have mercy on his dwelling-places" } 
When will the holy city again be " builded upon her own 
heap".^ When will '^the voice of joy, and the voice of 
gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of 
the bride" again be h@ard in her palaces, singing, Praise 

* Jer. 4 : 26, 27. t Isaiah 32 : 13, 15. 



388 



BIBLE LANDS, 



the Lord of hosts ; for the Lord is good and his mercy 
endureth for ever" ? When shall the wilderness and 
the solitary place be glad, and the desert rejoice and 
blossom as a rose'' ? When shall " waters break out in 
the wilderness and streams in the desert" ? When will 
the ransomed of the Lord return, and come to Zion 
with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads" ? 

The mills of God grind slowly, but surely and won- 
derfully fine." Deits habet suas horas et moras. But a 
thousand years for him are as one day. And his promise 
can never fail. 

Palestine needs for its regeneration a good govern- 
ment, an industrious population, capital, and a better re- 
ligion, even the religion of the Bible, which sprung from 
its own soil and is now almost unknown. The Turkish 
government does not even fulfil the first duty of all gov- 
ernment — the protection of life and property. It is no 
government at all, but a system of heartless oppression 
and incurable corruption. There is no justice and hon- 
esty in officials, no encouragement to till the soil, to build 
houses, to construct roads, to carry on commerce, to es- 
tablish manufactories. The country is systematically 
impoverished, the people drained of its best men by con- 
scription, kept in utter ignorance, and ground down by 
taxation till every vestige of manhood and every hope of 
improvement are crushed out of them, 

But nature cannot be destroyed. The plains of Phi- 
listia, of vSharon, of Esdraelon, of Gennesaret, and the 
Hauran, though overgrown with weeds and overrun by 
the wild Bedawin, are still there as fertile as ever. The 



FAREWELL TO THE HOLY LAND, 389 

lakes and the rivers and the fountains are there as abun- 
dant as ever. The hills and mountains, though denuded 
of forests, are there as lofty as ever. The same abun- 
dance of flowers adorns the earth in spring as when the 
Saviour drew lessons from the lilies of the field. And 
what the indolent Turks will never do, the industry and 
zeal of foreigners will do, and make Palestine once more 
a land of promise flowing with milk and honey," where 
every man may sit under his own vine and fig-tree." 

The process of regeneration has already begun. We 
see the small but hopeful tokens of a better future in the 
carriage-road from Jaffa to Jerusalem (the only one so 
far in Palestine), in the orange and olive groves of recent 
planting, in the German colonies of Jaffa, Haifa, and Je- 
rusalem, in the fine houses, gardens, churches, schools, 
and orphanages which the missionary zeal of foreign 
Protestants has established in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and 
Nazareth. Nor ought we to overlook the significant fact 
of the increasing immigration of the Jews, which was 
stimulated by the liberal benefactions of Rothschild and 
Montefiore, and will be still more encouraged by the 
cotcp d'etat of one of their own blood who sits at the 
helm of Queen Victoria's government. The Turkish 
misrule is approaching its downfall, and will give way to 
a new order of things. The old ruins need not be swept 
away by the tide of civilization, but should be carefully 
kept and restored, like the English and Scotch abbeys 
and cathedrals which perpetuate the memory of the ven- 
erable past amid the fresh life of the present. 

With these hopes of a brighter future we bid fare- 

3a=^ 



390 BIBLE LANDS, 

well to the Holy Land, and board the Austrian steamer 
in the beautiful harbor of Beirut on our homeward course 
to Europe and America. 

" Thou land of Judaea ! thrice hallowed of song, 
Where the holiest of memories pilo-rim-like throng; 
In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea, 
On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee. 

" With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore, 
Where pilgrim and prophet have lingered before ; 
With the glide of a spirit I traverse the sod 
Made bright by the steps of the angels of God. 

" I tread where the Twelve in their wayfaring trod; 
I stand where they stood with the Chosen of God, 
Where his blessing was heard and his lessons were taught, 
Where the blind was restored and the healing was wrought. 

" Oh, here with his flock the sad Wanderer came ; 
These hills he toiled over in grief are the same ; 
The founts where he drank by the wayside still flow, 
And the same airs are blowing which breathed on his brow ! 

* * * % * * % % 

^But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode 
Of Humanity clothed in the brightness of God ? 
Were my spirit but turned from the outward and dim, 
It would gaze, even now, on the presence of Him ! 

" Beloved of the Father, thy Spirit is near 
To the meek and the lowly and penitent here ; 
And the voice of thy love is the same even now 
As at Bethany's tomb or on Olivet's brow. 

" Oh, the outward hath gone ! but in glory and power 
The spirit surviveth the things of an hour; 
Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame 
On the heart's secret altar is burning the same !" 

WHITTIER. 



THE REGENERATION OF THE EAST. 391 



CHAPTER XL. 

THE REGENERATION OF THE EAST, 

The East a Vast Mission-field for the West— A Mys- 
tery of Providence — The Rise and Fall of Mo- 
hammedanism—The Crusades — Moral Regener- 
ation of Bible Lands— Missionary Churches and 
Schools — The Labors of the American Board in 
Turkey — The Bible-House^ Female Seminary, 
and Robert College in Constantinople — The 
Christianization of Moslems — The Berlin Con- 
gress and Anglo-Turkish Convention— Prospects 
of the Future. 

The lands of the Bible are a vast mission-field, which 
must be conquered with spiritual weapons for Christ and 
Christian civilization by the Western nations, in dis- 
charge of a debt of gratitude for the blessings received 
from them. Providence has prepared the way for this 
moral regeneration by a series of political changes, as 
the first introduction of Christianity was preceded by 
Greek letters, the conquests of Alexander, and the laws 
of the Roman Empire. Once Europe called upon Asia, 
'^Come over and help us!" Now the same cry comes 
from Asia and Africa to Europe and America. 

It is one of the great mysteries of Providence that 
the fairest portions of the earth, the native lands of clas- 
sical literature and the Christian religion, should have 
fallen under the ruinous swav of a semi-barbarous race. 



392 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Mohammed must have been far more than an ignorant 
camel-driver and common impostor, to become the ruler 
of a hundred and sixty millions of consciences, and to 
supplant the cross by the. crescent in Africa, Asia, and 
even a large part of Europe. He had the providential 
mission to destroy the gross idolatry of heathen nations, 
and to punish the refined idolatry of Christian churches 
which had practically forgotten the first and second com- 
mandments. The fundamental truth that God alone is 
great and worthy of the worship of his creatures, under- 
lies the fanaticism of the Moslems, and was the moral 
factor of their success. This intensely earnest monothe- 
ism, combined with fatalism, sensualism, and fearless 
bravery, was confronted with a Church weakened by un- 
fruitful disputes and torn by internal dissensions. The 
Turk would never have struck his tent in Europe but for 
the hierarchical rivalry between the Pope of Rome — who 
would rather see the progress of Islam than the triumph 
of the Greek schism — and the Patriarch of Constantinople, 
who cared more for the metaphysical procession than the 
practical work of the Holy Spirit, and abhorred the Latin 
Filioque as the worst of heresies and an unpardonable 
sin. This unhappy quarrel turned the mediaeval Crusades 
into a magnificent failure, a waste of blood and treasure, 
of bravery and chivalry, of devotion and enthusiasm. The 
Crusaders sought Christ on earth and among the dead, 
and, imitating their enemies, endeavored to accomplish 
by the sword what can be accomplished only by the 
spirit. 

If the East is to be regenerated and the Mohamme- 



THE REGENERATION OF THE EAST 393 



dans are to be converted, it must be done, as in the be- 
ginning, by the might of truth, by doctrine and example, 
by a repubHcation of the gospel of Christ. This process 
is slow but sure. 

" For truth is truth, since God is God, 
And truth the day must win ; 
To doubt would be disloyalty, 
To falter would be sin." 

It is a remarkable fact that the first impulse to this 
spiritual and bloodless crusade of faithful preaching and 
holy living came from the farthest West which has no 
poHtical interest in the East. The pioneers of moral 
reform in the Turkish Empire are a noble band of Amer- 
ican scholars and missionaries, of whom the Earl of 
Shaftesbury said in i860: "I do not believe that in the 
whole history of missions — I do not believe that in the 
history of diplomacy, or in the history of any negotiation 
carried on between man and man — we can find anything 
to equal the wisdom, the soundness, and the pure evan- 
gelical truth of the men who constitute the American 
mission. I have said it twenty times before, and I will 
say it again — for the expression appropriately conveys 
my meaning — that they are a marvellous combination of 
common sense and piety." 

The MISSIONARY work in the East began very nearly 
fifty years ago among the old Oriental sects of the Arme- 
nians, Nestorians, and Copts, which have been providen- 
tially preserved in a petrified state through trials and 
persecutions of centuries. From them it gradually ex- 
tended to the Orthodox Greeks, the United or Papal 



394 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Greeks, the Maronites (who are Papists but with a mar- 
ried priesthood and a Syriac liturgy), and the Bulgarians 
(who occupy an independent position between the Greek 
and Roman Churches). The Latin Catholics are least 
accessible, because they have more vitality and western 
support, and are closely watched by the Franciscans and 
Jesuits, who display their usual zeal in all the holy places 
and wherever there is an opening for them. 

The mission work is amicably divided (since 1843) 
among three leading Protestant denominations, differ- 
ing in church polity, but agreed in the same faith. The 
Presbyterians labor in Egypt, Syria, and Persia, among 
Copts, Armenians, Greeks, Maronites, and Nestorians ; 
the Church of England, in Palestine, among Jews and 
Greeks ; the Congregationalists, in Turkey proper, 
among Armenians, Bulgarians, and — as far as possible — 
also among Turks. Besides these Anglo-American mis- 
sions, the cause of evangelical Christianity is promoted 
by the Chrischona Brethren of Basle, the "Jerusalems- 
Verein " of Berlin, and the Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth, 
who administer comfort to the sick of all nationalities 
and creeds, and devote special attention to the training of 
orphans. 

At first the object of the American'missionaries was 
to reform the native churches from within on their own 
historic basis, beginning with the priesthood. But expe- 
rience forced them to change their policy. The hostility 
of the priesthood expelled the converts, as the Jewish 
synagogue had expelled the apostles, and the Romish 
hierarchy the reformers. Nevertheless the Prostestant 



THE REGENERATION OF THE EAST. 395 

missions have indirectly benefited those old churches by 
stimulating them to greater zeal for education and reli- 
gion. The flourishing schools of the venerable Dr. and 
Mrs. Hill in Athens (American Episcopalians), which 
are still conducted on the conservative principle of non- 
interference with the Greek Church, are working as a 
wholesome leaven within that Church. But no Protestant 
churches could be organized on this principle within 
another church of a different creed and discipline. Since 
the separation, the number of Protestant congregations 
of native converts and their offspring has been steadily 
on the increase. 

Of equal, and even of greater importance, are the 
missionary schools and seminaries of learning which tr'ain 
up a new generation, and are. accessible to all nationali- 
ties and creeds. Of course, no direct attempt at conver- 
sion can be made in these schools, but it is hoped that 
the good principles and example of the teachers will tell 
upon the life of the pupils. 

We have spoken of the Presbyterian and Episcopal 
missions in former chapters, but must add a few words 
on the equally important and equally flourishing missions 
of the American Congregationalists, under the direc- 
tion of the American Board of Commissioners of For- 
eign Missions in Boston. They have achieved great suc- 
cess among the Armenians — the Yankees of the East — 
who are specially adapted to a simple, intelligent, enter- 
prising, self-supporting, and self-governing type of evan- 
gelical Protestantism, similar to that of New England. 
The centre of the Congregational missions is Constanti- 



393 



BIBLE LANDS, 



nople, as Beirut and Cairo are the centres of the Presby- 
terian, and Jerusalem is the centre of the Episcopal mis- 
sions. From that centre the operations extend westward 
in European Turkey, and eastward in Asia Minor. There 
is scarcely an important town in Turkey without a Prot- 
estant community, which exerts a healthful influence 
upon the surroundings. The American Board has spent 
from the start till 1878 about five million dollars on the 
mission work in Turkey. It has sent out and commis- 
sioned in all 384 American ordained and native mission- 
aries ; T16 are now in the field, including 28 women 
devoted to the elevation of their own sex. The number 
of organized churches is 86, of preaching stations 275, 
with an average attendance on the Sabbath of 25,000; 
the communicant membership amounts to over 5,000. 
The most prominent among the missionaries who have 
been trained in Andover, Yale, Union, and other Ameri- 
can seminaries, and labored or are still laboring in Tur- 
key, are Goodell, Hamlin, Schauffler, Schneider, Dwight, 
Riggs, the brothers Bliss, Wood, Powers, Pratt, Wheeler, 
Washburn, Trowbridge, and others. The missionaries 
preach, teach, translate the Bible into the popular tongues 
of the East, and issue newspapers and illustrated month- 
lies for children and adults, in the Armenian, the Armeno- 
Turkish, Graeco-Turkish, and Bulgarian languages. The 
Bulgarian newspaper has more subscribers (3,000) than 
any newspaper in Constantinople. 

Besides these church missions, we must mention the 
educational institutions, which are independent of the 
Board, but have grown out of its labors, and afford the 



THE REGENERATION OF THE EAST 397 



greatest indirect help to the mission. Most prominent 
among them are three noble institutions in Constantino- 
ple : the Bible-House in Stamboul, the Female Seminary 
in Scutari, and Robert College in Bebek on the Bosphorus. 
What strikes the visitor at once is the admirable selection 
of location, in which the Congregationalists have shown 
as much tact and taste as the Presbyterians in Beirut, 
and the AngHcans on Mount Sion. A prominent and 
convenient location is a perennial attraction and the best 
advertisement. A battery in a good position may do 
great execution, while in a bad position it will only waste 
ammunition. This the Jesuits and Roman Catholics 
know well, and they act accordingly wherever they ad- 
vance and take a prominent foothold. 

The Bible-House is located in the busiest portion of 
Stamboul, not far from the lower bridge over ihe Golden 
Horn, and is a substantial and convenient building, from 
which are issued Bibles, religious tracts, and religious 
and educational works in all the languages used in Tur- 
key. It forms the headquarters of the missionaries and 
their friends. I attended a very solemn communion ser- 
vice held in an upper room at the anniversary meeting of 
the Bulgarian missionaries, who are doing a noble work 
among that interesting people. Several ministers from 
America and Ireland were present, and made brief 
addresses. 

The Female Seminary, under the direction of Mrs. 
Williams, lies on a commanding height above the Arme- 
nian church in Scutari, and affords a thorough Christian 
education for a reasonable price. 

BiljlQ Lands' 31: 



393 



BIBLE LANDS, 



Robert College, so called after its generous found- 
er in New York, stands on a commanding height at 
Bebek, about an hour from Constantinople, with a mag- 
nificent view over the European and Asiatic shores of 
the Bosphorus. It was a master-stroke of policy to select 
this spot, and it required all the shrewdness, ingenuity, 
energy, and perseverance of Dr. Hamlin, its first Presi- 
dent, and the backing of Admiral Farragut with the 
American fleet, to secure it. The house, built under Dr. 
Hamlin's direction, is fire-proof, and admirably adapted 
for its use. It can accommodate about 250 pupils. The 
Board of Instruction embraces fifteen teachers, chiefly 
Americans. Dr. George Washburn is the Director, Dr. 
Albert L. Long (formerly a Methodist missionary in Bul- 
garia), Professor of Natural Sciences. Besides the usual 
branches of a college course, no less than eight langua- 
ges are taught — English, Latin, Armenian, Bulgarian, 
French, German, Greek, and Turkish. The number of 
students which formerly reached 220, has diminished, in 
consequence of the war and the hard times, to 115, but 
will no doubt soon rise again. They come from all parts 
of Turkey, and represent all its nationalities and reli- 
gions. Care is taken to avoid sectarian teaching, but the 
Bible is read every morning, and explained every Sunday. 
It was my privilege, with Bishop Marvin of the Southern 
Methodist Church, to address the students after the reli- 
gious exercises, and I scarcely ever heard more hearty 
responses to what was said about the importance of a 
good Christian education. Robert College is worthy of 
all confidence. It affords the best English education 



THE REGENERATION OF THE EAST. 399 



that can be obtained in Turkey, and is destined to exert 
a growing influence on the future destinies of that em- 
pire. It will, no doubt, gradually expand into a complete 
Bosphorus University. 

Great as the result of the mission work in Turkey has 
been, considering the difficulties, discouragements, and 
persecutions, it is but the beginning of a much greater 
work of the future. The Protestant congregations of 
converts from older Christian churches and sects are the 
entering wedge for the conversion of the Mohamme- 
dans who are the true ultimate mission field of the 
East. 

It is not probable that the Moslems will ever become 
Greek or Roman Catholic, whom they abhor as semi- 
idolaters on account of their Mariolatry, saint-worship, 
and image-worship, and whom they have kept in a state 
of degrading servitude for so many centuries. The Ori- 
ental sects are out of the question, for they have no vital- 
ity, no missionary zeal. But there is a strong probabil- 
ity that a large number of Moslems will embrace the 
Protestant faith, with such modifications, of course, as 
are inevitable from the radical difference of nationality 
and deep-seated habits. Protestantism exhibits to them 
a new and more congenial type of Christianity, a simpler 
and more spiritual mode of worship, and a higher educa- 
tion than either the Greek or Latin Church ; and it ap- 
proaches them from England and America in the distant 
west without the hateful traditions of bloody wars and 
crusades. It is an encouraging and significant sign that 



400 



BIBLE LANDS. 



the Protestant missionaries and schools are highly es- 
teemed by them, and to some extent even patronized for 
their secular advantages, and that the sale of Arabic and 
Turkish Bibles is steadily increasing among them. 

If once brought under the humanizing and sanctify- 
ing power of the pure gospel the Moslems may become as 
good Christians as most other nations. The Arabs and 
Turks — different in race but united in religion — are now- 
ignorant, fanatical, sensual, polygamous, and ferocious 
semi-barbarians, but not without the redeeming qualities 
of bravery, simplicity, temperance, truthfulness, cour- 
tesy, and hospitality, to which may be added a singular 
kindness to their favorite animals — the horse, the camel, 
and the dove. Their noble physique is worthy to be the 
tent of a noble spirit. Conversion to Christianity would 
emancipate them from their vices and strengthen their 
virtues by associating them with the higher Christian 
graces. 

Heretofore no Mohammedan has been allowed to 
change his religion without incurring the death penalty, 
which the Koran enjoins upon all apostates. The liberty 
granted to foreign missionaries was only liberty to prose- 
lyte among their fellow-Christians, on the principle divide 
et impera^ but not from any conception of the liberty of 
conscience as an inherent right of man for which he is 
responsible to God alone. The Hatii Huniayotm (Impe- 
rial Edict, also called Haiti Sherif or Sacred Edict) 
which was wrested from the Sultan by his Christian 
allies after the Crimean war in 1856, abolished the death 
penalty, but was a dead letter, at least outside of Con- 



THE REGENERATION OF THE EAST. 401 



stantinople. A few dozen Turks were secretly baptized, 
but an open profession of Christianity brought on per- 
secution and exile. Real liberty of conscience and open 
access to the faith of the Moslems can only be secured 
by such a humiliation of the Turkish power as will sub- 
ject it completely to the mercy of Christian Europe, and 
break down the supremacy of the Koran. 

This has been done by recent events, and will ulti- 
mately prove the greatest blessing to the Arabs and 
Turks themselves. For nothing does a proud nation, as 
a proud individual, so much good as a thorough humilia- 
tion, which compels it to reflect, to repent, and to reform. 
Russia, under the sense of a providential mission, as well 
as with a natural desire for more territory on the Dan- 
ube and the Black Sea, undertook to punish the un- 
speakable" Turk for his late shocking atrocities against 
Christian men, women and children, and the accumulated 
guilt of centuries, and victoriously approached the very 
gates of Constantinople, when England, always jealous 
of the progress of Russia, and afraid of her supposed de- 
signs upon British India, interposed with her powerful 
navy, and threatened war for the protection of the Sul- 
tan, or rather for British interests. But counsels of mod- 
eration fortunately prevailed, and a Congress of states- 
men finished in peace the bloody work of war, and saved 
the contending nations a waste of millions of treasure 
and armies of men. 

The Berlin Congress of July, 1878, marks an im- 
portant epoch in the affairs of Turkey. Its international 
treaty is the neatest triumph of modern diplomacy and 

31* 



402 



BIBLE LANDS, 



perhaps the best settlement of the intricate Eastern prob- 
lem which the political wisdom of Europe, under the presi- 
ding genius of Prince Bismarck, could make at this time. 
It is avast improvement on the Paris Treaty of 1856 
and the London Treaty of 1871. We may regret the 
division of Bulgaria and the neglect of the claims of 
Greece to the adjoining Hellenic provinces and the isl- 
and of Crete. We may regret that the Congress did not 
make clean work of European Turkey, and place the 
whole of it under native Christian self-government, or 
divide it among the adjoining European powers. Euro- 
pean Turkey had been fairly conquered by Russia, and 
the Turk had long lost all claim over territories which 
he ruled only to ruin. It is a just retribution of history 
that he who conquers by the sword shall in turn be con- 
quered by the sword. But, considering the complication 
of interests and the jealousies of governments, which, 
though Christian in name, are all selfish in fact, and un- 
fortunately controlled by their pockets, rather than their 
conscience, we must overlook minor defects in view of 
the great substantial gain. 

The principle of religious liberty achieved a remark- 
able triumph in the Berlin Treaty. It is expressly se- 
cured to the several newly-organized provinces, and espe- 
cially also to the subjects of the remaining dominions of 
the Sultan, in Article 62, which reads as follows : 

" The Sublime Porte, having expressed the wish to maintain the 
principle of religious liberty, and give it the widest scope, the con- 
tracting parties take note of this spontaneous declaration. In no 
part of the Ottoman Empire shall differences of religion be alleged 



THE REGENERATION OF THE EAST 403 



against an individual as a ground for exclusion or incapacity as 
regards the discharge of civil and political rights, admission to the 
public service, functions, and honors, or the exercise of the differ- 
ent professions and industries. All persons shall be admitted, with- 
out distinction of religion, to give evidence before the tribunals. 
Liberty and the outward exercise of all forms of worship are assured 
to all, and no hindrance shall be offered, either to the hierarchical 
organization of the various communions, or to their relations with 
their spiritual chiefs. Ecclesiastics, pilgrims, and monks of all 
nationalities travelling in Turkey in Europe or Turkey in Asia shall 
enjoy the same rights, advantages, and privileges. The right of 
official protection by the diplomatic and consular agents of the 
Powers in Turkey is recognized both as regards the above-mention- 
ed persons, and their religious, charitable, and other estabhshments 
in the holy places and elsewhere. The rights possessed by France 
are expressly reserved, and it is well understood that no alterations 
shall be made in the status quo in the holy places. The monks of 
Mount Athos, of whatever country they may be natives, shall be 
maintained in their former possessions and advantages, and shall 
enjoy, without an exception, complete equality of rights and pre- 
rogatives." 

This is all that the American missionaries and the 
American branch of the Evangelical Alliance. have peti- 
tioned for, and all that Christian missionaries of any sect 
can reasonably desire. Liberty is substituted for mere 
toleration, and liberty is solemnly guaranteed by treaty. 
It is true the individual right to change one's religion 
with impunity, and the right of missionary propaganda 
bj^ peaceful moral agencies (without which Christian- 
ity itself would never have made much progress), is 
not mentioned, but it seems to be implied in " the prin- 
ciple of religious liberty in the widest scoped Yet here 
is just the point where great wisdom and caution will be 
necessary for some time, until a change in public senti- 



404 



BIBLE LANDS. 



ment will force the Turkish authorities to give the phrase 
this liberal construction. 

The Anglo-Turkish Treaty, though no work of the 
Berlin Congress, but a secret side-stroke of policy in 
the interest of England as a protection against Russia, is 
the most important part of the recent settlement as re- 
gards Asiatic Turkey, which is thereby placed under the 
protectorate of England, with the island of Cyprus (the 
home of Barnabas and of Sergius Paulus, the first Chris- 
ian ruler), as a base of operations. I would rather see 
the Czar on the throne of Constantinople than the Sul- 
tan, for he represents a progressive and civilizing power 
whose superiority is well typified by the contrast between 
young Petersburg, risen from the swamp in a forbidding 
climxate to the position of one of the finest capitals of 
Europe, and old Constantinople mouldering on the smi- 
ling shores of the Bosphorus between two continents and 
two seas. Alexander II. must be counted among the 
best of Russian sovereigns, and, as the emancipator of 
twenty-three millions of serfs and protector of the Greek 
Church, he would have brought liberty at least to the vast 
majority of Christians in Turkey.* But I greatly prefer 
the constitutional sceptre of England to the despotic 
government of Russia, which tolerates or persecutes Ro- 

* I may remark here incidentally that Prince Gortchakoff emphati- 
cally assured the international deputation of the Evangelical Alliance at 
Friedrichshafen, in 187 1, and authorized the spokesman of the deputation 
to publish it to the world, that his august master and himself are cor- 
dially in favor of religious liberty, and will do all in their power to pro- 
mote it as far as practicable in Russian dominions." See the Report of 
the American Alliance Deputation to Russia. New York, 187 1. 



THE REGENERATION OF THE EAST 405 



man Catholics and Protestants as the interests of the 
State and of the Greek Church may seem to require. 
England is everywhere, at home and abroad, the friend 
and protector of civil and religious liberty, as well as 
material progress, and allows fair play to missionary ac- 
tivities, without distinction of sect. She has moreover 
shown a wonderful skill and success in planting colonies 
and ruling heathen and Mohammedan races. Her rule 
in India, no matter how acquired, has been a blessing to 
the Hindoos, giving them peace and prosperity, and with- 
out interfering with their religion, has opened the way 
for the orderly introduction of Christianity. Her mo- 
tives in concluding the secret convention with Turkey 
may have been purely selfish ; but it is an undoubted 
fact that the interests of England are identical with the 
interests of constitutional freedom and an enlightened 
civilization. Wherever the British flag waves, there is 
security of life and property and the rights of men, there 
is freedom of speech and of the press, there is vigorous 
and honest administration of justice, there is commercial 
prosperity, there is the literature of Shakespeare and 
Milton, there we find an open Bible and a free pulpit, 
the purity and dignity of woman, and the blessings of a 
Christian home. 

Viewed from this point of view, the English protecto- 
rate of Turkey, which may result sooner or later in an- 
nexation, promises to be in the end as great a benefit to 
the Turks and Arabs as England's reign in India has been 
to the Hindoos. She has indeed assumed an enormous 
responsibility and a most difficult task. It will tax all her 



4o6 



BIBLE LANDS, 



capital and energy to lift Turkey out of the chaotic 
confusion and bankruptcy in which she is left after an 
exhaustive war. But she is better fitted for the task 
than any other government on earth, and she will have 
the hearty sympathy and cooperation of all true friends 
of those classic lands now fearfully prostrated, but des- 
tined to see a day of resurrection to new life. 

It may be doubted indeed whether the Turk can be 
truly reformed without ceasing to be a Mohammedan. 
In the transforming process he must become either an 
infidel or a Christian. We hope and pray that before 
long he will transfer his allegiance from the false prophet 
of Mecca to the true Prophet of Nazareth. 



MEANING OF ARABIC Vv^ORDS. 



A hi- Father. 

^Ain (Hebrew plural ^Ayun Fountain. 

Allah --God. 

Amerikanif Amelikani — American. 

''A^-abi - Arabic. 

Bab Door, gate. 

Badiye Desert. 

Bahr Sea. 

Bakshish --Gift, present. 

Beddwy (or Bedouin), pi. Bedawin — Dweller in the Desert. 

Beit (Hebrew Beth) House. 

Bint, pi. benath Daughter. 

Bir --- ' Well. 

B>eir -- - Convent. 

Emir - Prince. 

Fra7tsdwi French (European). 

Humar, pi. hamir Ass. 

Ibrahim - Abraham. 

Ibii, pi. be7ti » Son. 

htglizi ' Engl i sh. 

Is J. Jesus. 

. Submission (the Mohammedan re- 
Islam ^ 



ligion). 

yebel, YA.Jibdl --Mountain. 

yemel, ^X.jimdl — Camel. 

Jisr - Bridge. 

Kady (Hebrew Dan) Judge. 

Kawwds Consul's servant (gensdarme). 

Kefr . = = . = — Village. 



4o8 MEANING OF ARABIC WORDS. 



Khan Inn. 

Gentleman (European or American 
traveller). 

KicVcEt^ or KicraJi, or Kasr Castle. 



KhowCJa (lit. " the respected ") i 



La ilaha UP Alldh^ wa Muhamme- ) j There is no god but God, and Mo- 



du-rrasul- Allah - \ \ hammed is the prophet of God. 

Ma (vulgar moi) Water. 

.Md7' (Syrian)- Christian saint. 

Maryam Mary. 

Masr Egypt. 

Meri --Plain, meadow. 

Moskbwi — - Russian. 

Miieddin- - Caller to prayer. 

Mitkari (Mtikr) - - • Muleteer. 

. Mitrsal — - Missionary. 

Miisa - -Moses. 

Micslim^ ox Moslem - Mohammedan. 

Miisstihnan^ pi. MtLssitlmaiis - - do. 

Nahr -River. 

Neby - Prophet. 

Nukb Pass. 

JVusrani (Nazarene), pi. Nasara Christian. 

Ras Head, cape. 

Rasid (applied to Mohammed) Prophet. 

Sheikh^ pi. Shtiyukh-- Chief, elder. 

Shdla - - Turban. 

Suleiman Solomon. 

Tarhtish --Fez, cap. 

Tell, pi. Tulul Hill, mound. 

Tur - Mountain. 

Turki - - Turkish. 

Umm Mother. 

Wady Valley, watercourse. 

Wely • Tomb of a Mohammedan saint. 

Yehudi - Jew. 

Yusef' Joseph. 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



Abraham pages 90, 209, 214 

Aboo Simbel 80 

Abydos - 70 

Alexander, Bishop - 245 

Alexander the Great 26, 85 

Alexander II. 190, 404 

Alexander, Mrs. 303 

Alexandria-- - 25, 122 

Allianne, Evangelical, in Egypt 129 
'Ain, Et-Tin--347, 352; Gadis, 

19S ; Havvarah, 163; Hud- 

herah,i97; Mudawarah, 351 ; 

Tabighah 348 

American Missionaries 378, 393 

Amosis (Aahmes) I. 95 

Anchoretism - 123 

Anglo-Prussian Bishopric in 

Jerusalem 244 

Anglo-Turkish Treaty 404 

Anthony, St. 123 

Aperiu 94, 100 

Armageddon-- 319 

Armenians - 395 

Asenath 57 

Assouan 78 

Asyoot-- 6S, 127 

Athanasius -- 27, 122 

'Ayun Musa 150 

Baal Zephon 155 

Badeker 37, 177, 181, 312, 3SI 

Backsheesh 107 

Banias - ---332, 355 

Barada - — 366 

Baths of Pharaoh 165 

Baur-- 363 

Beaconsfield 378, 389 

Bedawin 136 



Beer 167 

Beirut --- 373 

Beit Jibrin 420 

Bellamy, Rev. Franklin 32S 

Beni-Hassan 66 

Berlin Congress 401 

Bethany 272, 276 

Bethel 306 

Bethlehem -- 220 

Bethlehem and Golgotha 230 

Bethsaida 345, 353 

Beth-Shemesh 56, 58 

Bible House in Constantino- 
ple-- 397 

Birch, Samuel 85 

Bistany, B. - 376 

Bliss, Rev. Dr. 376 

Book of the Dead - 42 

Boulak - — 37 

Brugsch-Bcy--40, 67, 68, 70, 86, 89, 
90, 97, 100, loi, 145, 155, 158 
Bunsen---42, 82, 85, 86, 89, 97, 244 

C^saraea Philippi 332, 355 . 

Cairo-- 31 

Calvary 259 

Camel 139 

Capernaum-- 343, 350 

Cataract of the Nile 81 

Catharine, St. 185, 188 

Convent of -- 184 

Mount 195 

Chabas 97 

Champollion 85 

Chateaubriand -- 265 

Cheops 43, 44, 52 

Chersa 346 

Chorazin 350, 353 



£5 



410 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Chronology of Egypt and of 

the Bible 88 

Chufu - -- -•43, 44, 52 

Church of the Nativity 224 

of the Holy Sepulchre 259 

Cleopatra - 72, 84 

Cleopatra's Needles — 28, 59 

Constantine the Great 224, 261 

Cook, Canon 95, 96 

Cook, Tourist — 21, 25, 63, 202, 307 

Copts - 125 

Corfu 22 

Crawford, Rev. Mr. — 372 

Cyprus 404 

Cyril of Alexandria - 124 

Dale, Rev. C. F. - 378 

Damascus 361 

Dan •• — 356 

David ---210, 221 

Deaconesses of Kaisers werth, 

in Jerusalem-- -- 247 

in Beirut - — 379 

Dead Sea 283 

Deir el-Arba'in 193 

Delta - 29 

Dendera - 71 

Dervishes, dancing and howl- 
ing - - 118 

Desert --I33» H5 

Dickson, Miss Mathilda- 327 

Dixon, Hepworth N. 226 

Dome of the Rock 255 

Donkey-boys-- — 25 

I^or-Bey 35 

Dragoman - 135 

Drake - 295 

Easter, Greek and Latin, in 

Jerusalem 240 

Ebal - 310 

Ebers, Dr. 44, 86, 89, 94, 97,98, 

100, loi, 145, 152, 155, 166, 168, 
169, 181, 191 

Edfu - 78 

Edwards, Miss Amelia B. 81 

Egypt 19, 104 

Egyptians, Modern 107 

Egyptology- 82 

El-Azhar -'- 34 



Elephantine — - 80 

Elijah > 173 

Elim- - 152, 164 



Elisha's Fountain - 



305 



Exodus 



Er-Raha 170, 177, 178, 180 

Esdraelon - 318 

Eschol - — 211 

Eusebius 261 

93.152 



Falscher -- 315 

Feiran -- 147, 168 

Ferguson, James-- 256, 268 

Fraas - - 295 

Furrer --268, 352 

Frederick William IV. 244 

Galilee, Lake of — 337 

Gaza - - 203 

Gennesaret 34'^? 35^ 

Gergesa 346 

Gerizim - 309, 310, 313 

Gethsemane - 273, 274 

Gheezeh 43 

Ghurundel - 164 

Gilboa - 319 

Gladstone - 22 

Gobat, Bishop -- 245 

Golden Gate-- 254 

Golgotha 259 

Graham, Rev. W. - 371 

Gregory 190 

Hagar Musa - -- 194 

Hamlin, Rev. Dr. 398 

Hazeroth--- 197 

Hawarah 153 

Hasbeiyah -- 297 

Hebron 210 

Helena - -226, 261, 264 

Heliopolis 56 

Hengsteuberg 86 

Hermon 330 

Herodotus ---20, 41, 44, 45, 52, 57, 
83, 96, 99, 102 

Hieroglyphics 83, 166 

Hill, Rev. Dr. - - 395 

Hoffmann Colonv • 247, 389 

Hogg, Dr. 69, 126, 127, 129 

Holland, Rev. F. \\ .--i69, 180, 196 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX, 



411 



Horeb • 171, 194 

Horus 48 

Howe, Fisher 269 

Huber, Rev. Jacob 328 

Huleh, Lake and Plain of 556 

Hyksos 90, 94 

Innocents 227 

Isis -- 4^ 

Islam 100 

Jabbok - 297 

Jacob- --2 12, 216, 297, 306, 309, 312 

[acob's Well 312 

Jaffa 219, 238 

Jebel Musa - 171 

Jenin 318 

Jeremiah 351 

Grotto of 268 

Jericho - - 304 

Jerome, St. - 228 

Jerusalem 232, 271 

Jessup, Rev. Dr. -- --376, 381 

Jesuits in Beirut 380 

Jezreel — 319 

Jews in Jerusalem 249 

John of Damascus - 279 

Jordan 296, 357 

Joseph 19, 57, 68, 92, 212, 308 

Tomb of 309 

Josephus 94, 209, 214, 236, 266, 

340, 352 

Justin Martyr 226 

Kadesh -- 197 

Kaiserswerth -247, 379 

Karnak - 74 

Kedron - 273 

Keim 351 

Kerazeh 350, 353 

Khan Minyeh - - 347 

Khedive of Egypt 33, 104, 106 

Kitchener, Lieut. -- -348, 350 

Klein, Rev. Mr. -- 246 

Koran - - 36, no 

Korte, Jonas - 267 

Krafft, Prof. William --261, 268 

Lane, E. W. 116 

Lansing, Rev. Dr. 126, 127, 129 

Lazarus - 277 



Lebanon — 373 

Leja, W^ady 194 

Lenormant 97, 166 

Lepers' Home in Jerusalem -- 248 

Lepsius, Dr. 40, 42, 44, 86, 89, 

97, 98, 169, 181 

Lot's Wife 290 

Luxor 74 

Lynch, Lieut. 286, 289, 294, 301 

Macgregor (Rob Roy) -299, 347,350 

Machpelah — 212 

Magdala 339, 346 

Maghara 166 

Manetho--- 82, 88, 89 

Mar Saba 278 

Mara - 164 

March, Rev. F. W. 378 

Mariette-Bey - -37, 48, 70, 71, 85, 89 
Martineau, Miss Harriet — 79, 140 

Martha 273 

Marvin, Bishop -246, 307 

Mary of Bethany -- 273 

Mary Magdalene 339, 346 

Maspero 98 

Mejdel --339, 346 

Memnon • 77 

Memnonium 76 

Memphis - - 65 

Mena or Menes 70, 85 

Menephthah 97, loi, 166 

Merrill, Dr. Selah 348, 350 

Minieh - 66 

Missions, Presbyterian in Egypt 126 

Episcopal in Palestine 244 

Presbyterian in Syria — 371, 376 
Congregational in Constanti- 
nople and Turkey 395 

Moab 302 

Mohammed and Mohamme- 
danism 100, 399 

Mohammed's Night Journey-- 257 

Mohammed Alewah 64 

Mohammed Ali 34, 106 

Mokateb 166 

Montalembert 123 

Moriah - 253 

Mormons 292 

Moses - 19, 57, 152, 155, 160, 172, 197 
Burial of - - - 303 



412 



BIBLE LANDS. 



Moslem Fanaticism 216 

Mosque of Damascus — 369 

El-Azhar--- 34 

of Hebron - 211 

of Mohammed All- 34 

of Omar 254 

Mott, Mrs. Mentor 379 

Musa, see Moses. 

Naaman 365, 366 

Nabulus (Neapolis)-- -- 314 

Nakhl -- 201 

Napoleon 26, 43, 83, 156 

Nazareth - 320 

Nebi Samwil 238 

Nebo - 302 

Negeb - 200 

Neumann, Bernhard-- 237 

Nile 62, 297 

Nugb Hawa 170 

Obelisk • 59, 79 

Olivet 271 

On - -- 56 

Oriental Habits 12 

Osiout - - -68, 127 

Osiris 42, 48, 71, 80, 124 

Osirtasen 67, 97 

Palestine 207, 383 

Palgrave 141 

Palmer, E. H.---138, 145, 148, 158, 
178, t8o, 181, 192, 198, 201, 285, 295 

Paul - 362 

Peter -■ — 358 

Pharaoh 91 

Phil^ 80 

Pilgrims' Bathing-place — 296, 301 

Pi-Ramessu 99 

Pi-Tum 99 

Plato 57 

Poole, R. Stuart 89, 90, 95, 97 

Porter, Dr. J. L. 152, 156, 180, 

197. 350> 364, 365, 371 

Post, Dr. - 377 

Pritchett, W. •-- 204 

Prudentius -- --220, 227 

Pyramids 39 

Quarantania 306 



Quaresmius 3^0 

Rameseum - 76 

Rameses II. 37, 65, 75, 77, 80, 

97, 100 

Rameses III. 77 

Rjis Sufsafeh 174, 177 

Rachel's Tomb 220 

Rawlinson 40, 89, 90 

Red Sea - 152 

Religious Liberty in Turkey-- 402 

Rephidini --169, 183 

Ritter 176, 268, 351 

Robert College 398 

Robinson, Dr. Edward 152, 157, 

I79> I97» 222, 267, 287, 288, 289, 

294, 313^ 347» 35O' 352 

Robson, Rev. S. 371 

Rosen, Consul 215, 268 

Rosetta Stone 86 

Rouge, De 42, 85, 97 

Ruckert, Friedrich 230 

Ruskin - • 375 

Ruth - 221 

Sabas, St. • 279 

Sakkara 65 

Salt Lake in Utah 292 

Salt Sea 283 

Samaria - 308 

Samaria, City of 316 

Samaritans 314 

Samaritan Pentateuch 315 

Saulcy, De 267, 291, 295 

Scarabaeus 41 

Sebaste 316 

Serapeum 65 

Serbal 169, 181 

Sesostris, see Rameses II. 

Sethi I. - 70, 76, 97 

Shaftesbury 393 

Sharpe - - -167, 180 

Shechem 309, 315 

Shiloh - 311 

Shishak 75 

Shubeibeh 360 

Shunem — 319 

Simon Magus 311 

Sinai, Mt. 171 

Sinai, Convent of Mt. 184 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



413 



Sinaitic Bible Codex 189 

Sinaitic Inscriptions 166, 181 

Sinaitic Peninsula 145 

Smyth, Piazzi- 50 

Solomon's Pools - 218 

Solomon, Temple of 254 

Sona • 193 

Sphinx - 47 

Spinoza 277 

Spiridion, St. — 22 

Stanley, Dean 24, 79, 163, 169, 

170, 178, 180, 192, 193, 197, 215, 
242, 302, 312, 326, 351, 357, 367 
Suez 150 

Tabighah 348 

Tabor 330 

Taiyibeh 165 

Talitha Kumi 247 

Tappe, Mr. and Mrs. 248 

Taylor, Miss Jesse 379 

Tell Hum 348 

Teyaha Bedawin • - 201 

Thebes 75 

Thompson, Mrs. Bowen 379 

Thomson, Dr. W. M. 214, 294, 

346, 375' 376 

Thothmes 95, 96 

Tiberias — -- 339 

Tih, Desert of 199 

Tih, Temple of 65 

Tischendorf — -176, 189, 191 

Tobler, Titus 250, 267, 322 

Towarah Bedawin • 137 



Transfiguration 332, 335 

Tristram, Canon 289, 295, 351 

Troutvetter 129 

Turquoise Mines in the Sina- 
itic Peninsula 145 

Tyre - -- 375 

Useit -- 165 

Usertesen I. — 67, 97 

Vale of Siddim 287 

Van Dyck, Rev. Dr. 376, 380 

Vartan, Dr. - - — 329 

Vigoroux 42, 87, 97 

Wady 147 

Wailing-place of the Jews 250 

Warren, Capt. 235, 254 

Washburn, Rev. Dr. - 398 

Waters of Merom 356 

Whately, Miss M. L. --- 128 

Whittier 390 

Wilderness 133, 145 

W^ilkinson- 89, 97 

Williams, Rev. George 268 

Wilson, Capt. 180, 254, 342, 349, 351 

Young - 85 

Yule, Dr. • 129 

Zeller, Rev. J. 328 

Zimmermann, Carl 235 

Zincke, Barham- 50, 78 

Zoan 94, 99 




* O I. o « <^ 



o » o 




O M O 





.0 o , , • 



o • * • 



^ , ^ ^ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 

" ^ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 




Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2011 



> 



l^^^>o *^ PreservationTechnologies 

* K A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATIOM 

. * • « ^ O " - 



A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive i 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 \ 
(724)779-2111 V 






S S ft"*''* " " 




! WERT ' ' 1^^^ • ^ • '^^d * ^ ^ * I 



